Chemical Engineering, BSChE

Chemical engineering students have strong interests in math, chemistry, physics, and biology. These subjects are often combined and encountered throughout our curriculum. Overall, chemical engineering students are curious about how and why things work, and they have a desire to invent new ways to improve existing technology.

The BSChE degree is a professional degree that prepares graduates for employment and graduate study in chemical engineering and related fields, as well as entry into professional programs such as medicine, dentistry, law, and business.

Chemical engineers apply economics, chemistry, biology, physics, and mathematics to the design and operation of processes and to the research and development of new materials, processes, and systems. The many and varied issues associated with going from concept to demonstration to operation of processes and equipment all fall within the province of chemical engineering. Chemical engineers are as comfortable with plant operations, research and development projects, synthesis of alternative fuels, energy conservation and conversion, process design, optimization and control, environmental conservation and pollution prevention, as they are with the exciting fundamental studies associated with biotechnology, nanotechnology, electrochemical technology, and other areas yet to be discovered.

The BSChE degree and curriculum place strong emphasis on the basic sciences, but a vital feature remains the high degree of confidence and practical ability gained from laboratory and design courses. Laboratories include equipment needed to study and demonstrate heat, mass, and momentum transfer; material and energy balances; process dynamics and control; chemical reaction systems, and thermodynamics. The laboratory courses cover fundamental principles to reinforce the basic courses within the chemical engineering curriculum, while also containing pilot scale process units and other pieces of equipment that allow students to build, operate, and analyze results collected during their operation. The Chemical and Biological Engineering High Bay Facility provides state-of-the-art visualization equipment for research and instruction in continuous and batch distillation and reaction engineering. Individual faculty member research laboratories give students the opportunity to work one-on-one with faculty in special problems courses.

The Chemical and Biological Engineering Design component of this curriculum includes development of student creativity, use of open-ended problems, development and use of modern design theory and methodology, formulation of design problem statements and specifications, consideration of alternative solutions, feasibility analyses, concurrent engineering design, technical research, and detailed system descriptions. The introduction of realistic constraints, such as economic factors, safety, reliability, aesthetics, ethics and environmental and social impacts, are used to fully develop each design experience.

Accreditation

Information can be found on Department website.

Special Features

While the baccalaureate degree curriculum contains many courses designed to sequentially introduce students to methodologies for understanding, defining, and solving a broad array of increasingly complex problems, there are elements in the program that also allow students to investigate exciting and challenging issues that often exist at the intersections where engineering and the sciences meet. Some of the elective and special program options are described below.

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