Chemical Engineering (redirected from chemical engineer)

chemical engineering: see engineering.

---

chemical engineering

Academic discipline and industrial activity concerned with developing processes and designing and operating plants to change materials' physical or chemical states. With roots in the inorganic and coal-based chemical industries of western Europe and the oil-refining industry in North America, it was spurred by the need to supply chemicals and products during the two World Wars. The field includes research, design, construction, operation, sales, and management activities. Chemical engineers must master chemistry (including the nature of chemical reactions, the effects of temperature and pressure on equilibrium, and the effects of catalysts on reaction rates), physics, and mathematics. The engineering aspect, involving fluid flow (see deformation and flow) and heat and mass transfer, is broken down into “unit operations,” including vaporization, distillation, absorption, filtration, extraction, crystallization, agitation and mixing, drying, and size reduction; each is described mathematically, and its principles apply to any material. Chemical engineers work not only in the chemical and oil industries but also in such processing industries as foods, paper, textiles, plastics, nuclear, and biotechnology.

---

chemical engineering

the branch of engineering concerned with the design, operation, maintenance, and manufacture of the plant and machinery used in industrial chemical processes
www.che.ufl.edu/www-che

---

chemical engineering [′kem·i·kəl ‚en·jə′nir·iŋ]

(engineering)

That branch of engineering serving those industries that chemically convert basic raw materials into a variety of products, and dealing with the design and operation of plants and equipment to perform such work; all products are formed in chemical processes involving chemical reactions carried out under a wide range of conditions and frequently accompanied by changes in physical state or form.

---

Chemical engineering

The application of engineering principles to conceive, design, develop, operate, or use processes and products based on chemical and physical phenomena. The chemical engineer is considered an engineering generalist because of a unique ability (among engineers) to understand and exploit chemical change. Drawing on the principles of mathematics, physics, and chemistry and familiar with all forms of matter and energy and their manipulation, the chemical engineer is well suited for working in a wide range of technologies.

Although chemical engineering was conceived primarily in England, it underwent its main development in America, propelled at first by the petroleum and heavy-chemical industries, and later by the petrochemical industry with its production of plastics, synthetic rubber, and synthetic fibers from petroleum and natural-gas starting materials. In the early twentieth century, chemical engineering developed the physical separations such as distillation, absorption, and extraction, in which the principles of mass transfer, fluid dynamics, and heat transfer were combined in equipment design. The chemical and physical aspects of chemical engineering are known as unit processes and unit operations, respectively.

Chemical engineering now is applied in biotechnology, energy, environmental, food processing, microelectronics, and pharmaceutical industries, to name a few. In such industries, chemical engineers work in production, research, design, process and product development, marketing, data processing, sales, and, almost invariably, throughout top management. See Biochemical engineering, Biomedical chemical engineering, Biotechnology, Chemical conversion, Chemical process industry, Unit operations, Unit processes

---

Chemical Engineering 

the science dealing with the processes, methods, and means for the large-scale chemical processing of raw materials and intermediates.

Chemical engineering arose in the late 18th century, and until nearly the 1930’s it consisted in describing individual chemical production processes and the basic equipment, materials, and energy balances of such processes. As the chemical industry developed and the number of chemical production processes grew, it became necessary to study and establish general relationships for the design of optimum chemical engineering processes and the introduction and efficient use of such processes in industry.

The primary task of chemical engineering is to combine in a single production system various types of chemical transformations with physicochemical and mechanical processes: the breaking up and sorting of solid materials (for example, crushing), the formation and separation of heterogeneous systems (for example, filtration, centrifugation, settling, and dispersion), mass transfer (rectification, absorption, adsorption, crystallization, extraction) and heat transfer, phase changes, compression of gases, and the creation of high and low temperatures and electric, magnetic, and ultrasonic fields. Chemical engineering also involves the transport, storage, and preservation of raw materials, intermediates, and finished products; the control and automation of production processes; and the choice of structural materials for industrial equipment and the types and unit capacities of equipment.

Chemical engineering methods are used not only in chemistry but also in many other branches of industry, including the petrochemical, metallurgical, building materials, glass, textile, pulp and paper, pharmaceutical, and food-processing industries.

The theoretical foundations of chemical engineering are the studies of processes, equipment, and chemical cybernetics, including mathematical modeling, the optimization of chemical engineering processes, and automated control systems.

Chemical engineering problems are solved by using the latest advances in all branches of chemistry (especially physical chemistry), physics, mechanics, biology, mathematics, engineering cybernetics (including automated control systems), and industrial economics.

Chemical engineering may be subdivided according to various criteria: (1) by raw materials (for example, processing engineering for mineral, vegetable, or animal raw materials and coal and oil engineering); (2) by the nature of consumption, or by commodities (for example, the production engineering of fertilizers, dyes, and pharmaceutical products); (3) by the grouping of elements in the periodic system (for example, the technology of alkali metals and heavy metals); and (4) by the type of chemical reactions and processes used (such as chlorination, sulfurization, and electrolysis engineering).

Chemical engineering is currently developing in the following areas: the integrated use of raw materials and energy within a given industry or in cooperation with other industries; the construction of high-capacity equipment from materials resistant to the action of chemicals; the development of continuous and closed-cycle processes to eliminate the contamination of air and water basins with industrial wastes; the widening of ranges of working temperatures and pressures; the use of catalytic reactions and fluidized-bed processes; and the development of automation systems and control and measurement technology.

REFERENCES

Vol’fkovich, S. I., A. P. Egorov, and D. A. Epshtein. Obshchaia khimicheskaia tekhnologiia, vol. 1. Moscow-Leningrad, 1952.
Obshchaia khimicheskaia tekhnologiia, vol. 2. Edited by S. I. Vol’fkovich. Moscow, 1959.
Kafarov, V. V. Metody kibernetiki v khimii i khimicheskoi tekhnologii, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1971.