Chemical Engineering

Chemists develop new compounds and materials. When it's time to bring those products to market or match a compound to a practical application, companies call on chemical engineers. A marriage of chemistry's skills and engineering's methods, chemical engineering offers graduates a broad range of research and career opportunities. The discipline is vital to such applications as material technologies (plastic parts for automobiles, optoelectronic devices and new construction materials), thermal and energy transfer (specialized fuels, high-energy density batteries, and fuel and solar cells), public health (biomaterials, genetic engineering of therapeutic proteins and computer-aided drug design), and environmental technologies (product life-cycle analysis and conversion technologies for waste reduction and the cleanup of contaminated sites).

WPI's Chemical Engineering Department offers a unique combination of world-class faculty, state-of-the-art facilities and undergraduate research opportunities. And no other program in the country has the WPI Plan, an innovative, project-based curriculum in which students design their own programs with the advice and consent of their advisors. Under the Plan, chemical engineering majors develop the practical experience, self-confidence, and communication and problem-solving skills they need not only to succeed in this dynamic and varied industry, but to lead it into the future.

Programs

Chemical engineering at WPI requires extensive study in mathematics, basic science, engineering science and design, and advanced chemistry. Also required is a capstone design experience, which may be fulfilled by taking the Chemical Plant Design Project course (in which a team of students designs a major chemical plant), or through a combination of a Major Project and additional study outside the major.

Biochemical, biomedical, environmental or materials concentrations are available to chemical engineering majors who wish to further focus their studies.

Undergraduates may also select projects and pursue advanced courses or independent studies, or choose projects in the following major subareas of specialization: aerosol science, biochemical engineering, bioengineering, (bio)process analysis, environmental engineering, fuel cells, material science and engineering, membrane technology, monitoring and control, reaction engineering, and zeolite technology. All are closely tied to faculty research programs.

Projects

The WPI Plan places projects at the heart of the educational experience. Chemical engineering majors may choose from a wide variety of research-oriented, developmental, industrial, nonexperimental design or theoretical projects, which may be completed on campus as part of a sponsored research program, or in conjunction with off-campus government or industry laboratories. Current areas of specialization within the department are in adsorption, aerosol science, biochemical engineering, bioremediation, catalysis/deactivation, diffusion, environmental engineering, fuel cells, inorganic membranes, kinetics, mass transfer, nucleation phenomena, process control, reaction engineering, separation processes, synthetic fuels, thermodynamics, waste reduction and zeolites.

Some recent project topics:

Facilities

In keeping with WPI's intensive, hands-on philosophy of education, the Chemical Engineering Department includes the following state-of-the-art laboratories that support the breadth and depth of chemical engineering research. All are available for use by undergraduates.

Atomic Science Laboratory

Nanometer-size droplets are formed in supersonic flows and characterized using IR spectroscopy and small-angle neutron scattering.

Biological Interaction Forces Laboratory

Atomic force microscopy and related techniques are used to study microbial adhesion to various surfaces, including biomaterials.

Bioreactor Engineering Laboratory

Stirred-tank, packed-bed and membrane-type bioreactors in this lab are used in the production of biological products.

Bioseparation Laboratory

Research in this lab is concerned with separation of biochemicals and pharmaceuticals and includes membrane separations and two-phase electrophoresis.

Catalysis and Surface Science Laboratory

Using such tools as continuous stirred-tank reactors, temperature-programmed reaction units, mass spectrometers, and ultraviolet and visible Raman spectrometers, researchers in this lab focus on a variety of environmental problems, including the hydrodechlorination of chlorofluorocarbons and the decomposition of nitrous oxides.

Fuel Cell Laboratory

Research in this lab focuses on proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells, catalytic reformers for producing hydrogen for fuel cells, and fuel cell catalysis. State-of-the-art analytical equipment is available.

Heat and Mass Transfer Laboratory

Equipment in this lab is used to measure heat and mass transfer coefficients in packed columns. Computer workstations are used for computational fluid dynamics studies of heat and mass transfer mechanisms.

Inorganic Membranes and Adsorption Laboratory

This lab features modern equipment to study the adsorption and diffusion of gases and vapors in such porous materials as zeolites, molecular sieve carbons, porous alumina and hollow-fiber inorganic membranes.

Reaction and Catalyst Engineering Laboratory

The RCEL has a variety of reactors, analytical instruments, monitors and controllers that are used to prepare and characterize catalysts and to conduct detailed kinetic studies.

Zeolite Crystallization Laboratory

Researchers in this facility study how zeolite crystals nucleate and grow by synthesizing molecular sieve zeolites over a wide range of temperatures, chemical compositions and hydrodynamic conditions. The crystals are characterized using optical and electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and particle size analysis.

Careers

WPI's chemical engineering program prepares students for a variety of careers. The respect the industry has for our program is reflected in the companies that hire our graduates. These companies include Air Products and Chemicals, Chabot, Chemin, Clairol, CytoTherapeutics, Dow Chemical, DuPont Chemical, Entrek, Environmental, Epyx, Exxon, Foxboro, Grace Chemicals, General Electric, General Motors, International Fuel Cells, Millipore Corp., Mobil Oil, Norton, Pfizer, Polaroid, Polyclad Laminates, Procter & Gamble, Schlumberger Wells Services, Shipley, Texaco, Toray Plastics America, W. L. Gore and Xerox.

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Last modified: November 08, 2006 14:01:39