Trends in Chemical Engineering Processing
By Edward W. Funk, Ph.D.
Once considered to be almost entirely related to refineries and chemicals, chemical engineering processing is expanding to far more diverse areas, as expressed in three trends.
First, disappearing from the American landscape are the enormous refineries that once operated on the outskirts of many cities. Appearing are new plants that work on a scale 100 to 1000 times smaller. Where once engineers developed ways to build larger and larger, the focus now is smaller and smaller to the point that some chemical reactors used for laboratory studies can only be seen with a microscope.
The old wisdom was to build very large plants, gaining economy by the scale of the operation -- one enormous compressor was cheaper than ten small ones. The present trend is for smaller and more flexible plants. There is also an effort to exploit the advances in biotechnology, novel materials, nanotechnology, and microfabrication. For example, fuel cells will be used in cell phones to replace batteries that have a relatively short use between recharging, and phones will run on air and hydrogen.
Here at the University of Illinois, Chicago we are involved in developing new, smaller and more efficient processes for extracting oil from tar sands, producing chemicals needed to produce vaccines, production of ethanol from corn and related agricultural products, production of chemicals from waste materials and gases emitted from landfill deposits, and advanced polymer resins and plastics. Terms like “nanotechnology” and “process intensification” are common in every technical meeting.
The second major trend in chemical engineering is the emergence of safety from a craft to a science. Twenty years ago a graduating chemical engineer had a 1-in-20 chance of a serious injury or health problem due to professional work. That is now about 1-in-500, due to the creation of a coherent methodology of designing, building, maintaining, and operating safe plants. Much was learned from the U.S. Navy, which initiated a zero tolerance for accidents on nuclear submarines. The chemical industry now has a proud record of safety, and serious accidents such as Bophal are far less likely.
The third major trend is environmental. Chemical engineering processes are now designed, from the initial stage, to account for every environmental issue, and many new processes are discarded due to environmental risk. Most chemical companies work closely with their regional EPA in developing a new process and in how waste materials will be handled. The goal in the chemical industry is to have zero discharge. Every waste material is potentially a feed material for a new product. A good example is municipal garbage, which in many places is used to generate electricity.
These three trends, illustrating the expansion of chemical engineering to a wide variety of technologies, have produced what might be considered a fourth trend: Virtually all major universities have a vibrant department of chemical engineering, and there is a strong demand for graduates to explore and develop these technologies.
Dr. Edward Funk has 20 years experience with Fortune 20 companies, including Corporate Research of Exxon and Corporate Technology for Honeywell. He specializes in the area of intellectual property. He is the author of six U.S. patents, and his R&D groups have generated over 60 patents. He has a B.S. in Applied Science from Yale and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He has been a consultant since 1992, and holds a Visiting Professorship at the University of Illinois.