Chemical engineering relates to creating the best process design for transforming and transporting raw materials into economical products using chemical processes. This subject has multi-disciplinary topics associated with the knowledge of chemistry, physics, biology, mathematics, and economics to conduct industrial processes.
This subject is very crucial for designing and troubleshooting in the industries to get the best quality products. This field lies between molecular sciences and engineering. It has close collaboration with fellow engineering disciplines like materials science, mechanical, electrical, computer science, and civil engineering.
What is Chemical Engineering?
Chemical Engineering is an important branch of engineering to converts raw materials into useful products in a safe and cost-effective way.
This branch of engineering develops, improves, and innovates sustainable processes to transform raw materials into a wide range of products. The processes are designed by chemical engineers and should be safe, environmentally friendly, and cost-effective. By studying this branch, it develops knowledge and skills including creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication.
The proper knowledge from this branch helps to produce food, energy, transport, medicines, fuels, technology, materials, and healthcare products in a sustainable and cost-efficient way. It is essential to make our world more sustainable to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
This branch fully relates the chemical production and the manufacture of products through chemical processes. The knowledge from this branch is essential to design the industrial equipment, systems, and processes to transform the raw materials and for mixing, compounding, and processing chemicals to make economical end products.
Chemical Engineering Branches
The types of chemical engineering depend on the chemical processes, including equipment design, selection, and operation purposes. There are many chemical engineers involved in the field of biochemical engineering to develop environmentally friendly products in cost-effective ways and waste treatment solutions.
Chemical engineers work in the fields of energy engineering, process engineering, nuclear engineering, biotechnologies, and environmental engineering. The chemical engineering branches are discussed below:
Process Engineering: It is the branch of chemical engineering that involves designing, implementing, optimizing, and improving the chemical processes to get good end products. It is very essential to the manufacture of chemical, pharmaceutical, and food and beverage products. It provides knowledge about the manufacturing lines, scales up chemical reactions, and ensures quality and safety issues. Process engineers develop the safety, efficiency, and sustainability of processes in various fields. They help to run the process smoothly and implement any issues that arise.
Material Engineering: This branch of engineering is very important to test new materials and find innovative ways to use existing materials. The knowledge from this branch is used very much in the fields of aerospace engineering, automobile engineering, and electronics engineering. The properties and behavior of raw materials, intermediate products, and end products can be known by studying this field.
Energy Engineering: It is a branch of chemical engineering related to energy services, energy efficiency, renewable energy, power generation, facility management, environmental compliance, and sustainable energy. Energy engineers help to create new designs, optimize, and implement these to develop strategies for reducing energy consumption and costs. They can evaluate the energy usage policies at a low cost. They have the ability to design renewable energy systems for the development of energy storage solutions issues.
Industrial Distributed Control System Engineering: This branch of engineering is the newly developed branch of chemical engineering which is an indispensable matter to execute the industrial control systems to run the industrial operations and tools smoothly. Distributed Control System Engineers focus on the design and program control systems. They have the knowledge to control and monitor the various process parameters, such as temperature, pressure, flow, and level. Programmable logic controllers and supervisory control systems are used in this field to monitor and control the industrial process as effectively as possible.
Food Process Engineering: This branch relates to running the proper operation for transforming raw agricultural commodities into shelf-stable products. This branch helps to create new food processing systems to get safe, efficient, and high-quality food products. Food process engineers develop food products in a cost-efficient way.
Computational Fluid Dynamic Engineering: It is a very important branch of engineering for running the industrial process. The knowledge from this branch helps to analyze and optimize fluid flow and heat transfer operations in various fields. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) engineers create special types of numerical simulations and modeling techniques for properly controlling the industrial process. They use specialized software tools for complex simulating issues in the field of fluid dynamics. These simulations are vital materials for running the turbulence, multiphase flow, and combustion purposes.
Pharmaceutical Engineering: This branch of engineering helps to create and conduct the proper pharmaceutical manufacturing processes. High-quality pharmaceutical products can be produced by applying the knowledge of this branch. Pharmaceutical engineers work in the field of pharmaceutical industries to the production and optimization of drug delivery systems as well as their good packaging purposes.
Bioprocess Engineering: This branch of chemical engineering relates to designing and optimizing bioprocesses for the production of biopharmaceutical products. This branch of engineering helps to develop the existing bioprocesses and confirms the smooth production process with regulatory guidelines. Bioprocess engineers have the ability to produce and optimize bioreactors and purification systems.
Chemical Engineering Benefits
This branch of engineering creates a lot of benefits for those interested in the field. Chemical Engineering graduates get a wide range of job opportunities from most industries for their versatility. This subject has a high impact factors on our society. Chemical engineers play a vital role in developing the existing industrial process and various technologies to get the best output in a cost-effective way.
Chemical Engineering Scopes
Chemical Engineering creates a great opportunity to find a new way to reduce global warming and different types of pollution. Society as well as the whole world waits for chemical engineering activity to reduce the impact of our actions on our planet by developing the standard of living and technological innovations. They have the ability to innovate environment-friendly materials to achieve the SDGs matter.
Chemical Engineering Job Sectors
There are many industries where chemical engineers lead the main process. Chemical engineers can work in the field of aerospace engineering to develop aircraft and spacecraft. They can apply various biological processes in the biochemical industry as biochemical engineers for the production of pharmaceuticals, pest-resistant crops, or new types of bacteria. Chemical engineers can run their jobs as chemical plant technicians for manufacturing chemicals or monitoring equipment.
Chemical engineers can work as civil engineers to create various chemical plant design issues. They can develop computer hardware and software systems to develop new materials and processes.
Chemical engineers can work with the electrical industries to run the electrochemical and various materials. They can work as environmental engineers to control pollution and develop processes. They can run their careers in the food industry to develop new processes and new additives for preparing and preserving food.
The chemical engineer works closely with the mechanical engineer to design, manufacture, or maintenance of mechanical systems. They can help marine engineers to achieve design the mining processes and analyze the chemical composition of various types materials and waste.
Chemical engineers can work in the nuclear engineering fields to manufacture of radioisotopes. They can join the petrochemical industry to test the chemical composition of the source material and products. They can work in the paper manufacturing industries to design the processes to make and improve products and analyze waste.
Chemical engineers may work in the petroleum industries to create the design the chemical processes in these plants. They can run their working career in the pharmaceutical industry to provide good production facilities and ensure plants are meeting environmental and health safety requirements,
Chemical engineers help to design industrial plants or develop existing plants to improve their efficiency. They develop the plastic and polymer manufacturing processes. They can assist colleagues and clients, offering support and advice for their broad education and expertise. They can engage themselves to monitor, design, and maintain equipment that removes contaminants from wastewater.
Chemical Engineer Skills
There are many skills that are necessary to have chemical engineers which are given below:
Chemical engineers must have knowledge about mass transfer which is the heart of Chemical engineering.
Chemical engineers should have the proper knowledge about the various topics of mathematics like Laplace Transforms.
Chemical engineers must have knowledge of the chemical process technology.
Chemical engineers should have good ideas about the pump functions and also topics like Distillation, Drying, and Diffusion.
Chemical engineers should have a good understanding about the knowledge about heat transfer, fluid flow, fluid measurement, and thermodynamic issues.
Chemical engineers must have ideas about chemical processing and controlling software like Aspen HYSIS, CHEM CAD, etc.
Chemical Engineers Salary
Chemical engineers get around $94,824 per year in the USA. They can get $149,183 per year or $76.50 per hour in Canada. They get £40,000 per year or £20.51 per hour in the UK. Chemical engineers get €91,651 a year and €44 an hour in Germany. The chemical engineers get $85,000 to $105,000 per year in Australia. Chemical engineers get ZAR 179,979 per month in South Africa. They get 6,60,482 Rupees per year in India. Chemical engineers in Bangladesh get 25,000 TK per month minimally.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is a chemical engineer?
Chemical engineers is the graduate students after studying the chemical engineering subject with their branches.
What are the types of chemical engineering jobs?
Chemical engineers can work in the environmental sectors, aerospace sectors, chemical processing sectors, petrochemical sectors; DCS plant sectors, biochemical process sectors, waste treatment sectors, and energy production sectors.
What are the applications of Chemical engineering?
This branch of engineering is essential in the chemical, biochemical, pharmaceutical, environmental, and energy production industries to design, control, and operate properly.