e d u c a t i o n f o r c h e m i c a l e n g i n e e r s 3 ( 2 0 0 8 ) e22e27

available at www.sciencedirect.com

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ece

Trends in chemical engineering education: Process, product

and sustainable chemical engineering challenges
Eric Favre , Veronique Falk, Christine Roizard, Eric Schaer
ENSIC, Nancy Universite, 1 rue Grandville, 54001 Nancy, France

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:

Teaching chemical engineering has always been faced with a dilemma: either keep in touch

Received 25 October 2007

with industry needs or incorporate new scientic concepts into the curriculum. In this paper,

Accepted 17 December 2007

a short historical analysis of the evolution of chemical engineering teaching is presented

and the recent trends of the two previous facets (industry and science) are briey reviewed.
The process vs product engineering concept is proposed as one of the means to achieve

Keywords:

a better alignment between the curriculum and industry needs. A chemical engineering

Product

teaching framework, based in part on a product and a process oriented component, which

Process

has been in place in our department 5 years ago, is described and discussed. The concept of

Engineering

sustainable chemistry, including process and product considerations, which can be seen as

Sustainable chemistry

the next frontier in chemical engineering education, is nally analysed from the education

Education

point of view.

History

2008 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1.

Introduction

Chemical engineering can be broadly dened as the branch

of engineering that deals with the application of sciences
(e.g., mathematics, chemistry and physics) to the process of
converting raw materials or chemicals into more useful or
valuable products in an economical and sustainable manner (i.e., simultaneously managing resources, protecting the
environment and controlling health and safety procedures).
This somehow dual character of the discipline, which combines a scientic facet together with a more pragmatic one
(i.e., solving the problems of industry), is represented in Fig. 1.
Similarly to a tree that grows thanks to two nutrient inlets
(e.g., roots and leaves), a schematic plant pattern has been
used in order to show the scientic roots, which, together
with the industry needs and challenges, contribute to the
enlargement of the trunk (i.e., the core of our discipline). The
dual character, which can be proposed as a generic one for
every engineering domain, was highlighted by Danckwerts
(1966).
When one goes back to the historical evolution of chemical engineering, it can be seen that the discipline and the
core curriculum have reacted to stimuli both from science

and industry. Table 1 tentatively summarizes what could be

considered as the landmarks of the discipline. It can be seen
that industry or society needs, such as energy, environment,
or nanotechnology, participate together with evolution of the
scientic tools, to drive the changes. Paradigms in chemical
engineering education have been proposed in order to attest
to the major changes in the discipline. Unit operations are
often considered as the rst unifying paradigm of chemical engineering, (Colton, 1991; Wei, 1996; Hougen, 1977). The
second paradigm appeared in 1960 with the book of Bird,
Stewart and Lightfoot entitled Transport phenomena (Bird
et al., 1960). Today, the second paradigm is as old as the
rst one was when this book was published and the chemical engineering community is still searching for the elusive
third paradigm (Wei, 1996; Mashelkar, 1995; Landau, 1997).
The needs of modern society, getting closer to the practices
in industry, multiscale approach, biology, nanotechnology and
manufacturing efciency are all held out as promising challenges from which novel concepts could emerge (Astarita,
1990; Brown and Mashelkar, 1995; Krieger, 1996; Landau, 1997;
Kwauk, 2004). Nevertheless, the implications of these promising tracks to the curriculum content can hardly be identied
at this stage.

Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 3 83 17 53 90; fax: +33 3 83 32 29 75.

E-mail address: Eric.Favre@ensic.inpl-nancy.fr (E. Favre).
1749-7728/$ see front matter 2008 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ece.2007.12.002

e d u c a t i o n f o r c h e m i c a l e n g i n e e r s 3 ( 2 0 0 8 ) e22e27

e23

Fig. 2 Sketch of the evolution of chemical engineering

curriculum, according to Aris (1977).

Fig. 1 Chemical engineering vision: a bridge between

science and chemical process industries.

Apart from the historical evolution of the discipline, an historical review of the content of the curriculum can also be
worth for comparison purposes. Fig. 2 shows such an analysis
as a pictorial view for the 7 decades 19001970 (Hougen, 1977;
Aris, 1977). The decrease of descriptive courses, the increasing
ratio of hard scientic topics, the emergence of new tools (simulation, computer science) and new industry needs (biology)
can be identied. At the same time, it is interesting to note
that what could be termed the size of the box (i.e., the total
time dedicated to teaching chemical engineering concepts),
has signicantly increased over this period. This matter of fact,
which can be seen as the change from a specialty course to a
full undergraduate and graduate program, remains a key concern of what will be discussed in this paper. In other words,

Table 1 The evolution of chemical engineering

1880: Society of Chemical Engineers (G. Davis, UK)
1888: First course in Chem. Eng. at MIT (USA)
1906: American Institution of Chemical Engineers
1915: Concept of unit operations (A.D. Little)
1923: Principles of Chemical Engineering by Lewis et al.
1950: Chemical thermodynamics
1955: Chemical kinetics
1960: Transport Phenomena by Bird, Stewart & Lightfoot
1963: Chemical reaction engineering
1965: System dynamics, process control
1968: Environmental engineering
1970: Safety & risk assessment
1973: Energy
1980: Biotechnology
1985: Computing & simulation (PSE, CFD, MD)
1990: Complex systems
2000: Nanotechnology, bio (life sciences)
A tentative inventory of the historical landmarks of the discipline.

should we (or could we) once more increase the box, in order
to leave time for new teaching units? Or do we consider that
the size of the box can by no means be changed, so that some
teaching units should decrease (or disappear) if new ones are
needed?
Apart from the size of the box, the content obviously plays
a key role and also addresses difcult questions. A subtle
balance between rigorous scientic concepts and useful (but,
sometimes, too empirical) tools has to be proposed. A problem
solving orientation linked with industry can be attractive to
student and nds increased attention in research programs as
public funding decreases (leading, among others, to a money
driven situation). This choice can lead to a teaching approach
based on purely empirical knowledge and to a lack of concepts which are of crucial importance for any scientic domain
identity (Bird, 1996). An engineer must indeed remain a problem solver. Such a subtle equilibrium between applied and
fundamental aspects is very delicate to maintain, both for
teaching and research purposes; as a consequence, controversial debates periodically alert to dangerous deviations of our
discipline either towards too practical oriented or too fundamental activities.
More precisely, the eventual decision to change the curriculum of chemical engineering should be taken according to the
recent evolution of science and industry (i.e., CPI for Chemical Process Industries). A (probably oversimplied) summary
of the recent trends can be described as follows:
(i) In terms of objects, the number of molecules which are
known and potentially handled by chemical engineers,
is continuously increasing (Fig. 3a). Even though a modest ratio of those will be marketed, typically less than
1% (Agam, 1994), one could wonder on the need to make
evolve the content of the curriculum with respect to this
continuing trend.
(ii) More interestingly, the objects which are sold by chemical industries have undergone a profound evolution.
CPI products are no more sold for what they are (i.e., a
molecule), but for what they do (i.e., a property or function). In other words, a chemical product is nowadays
frequently a complex mixture, which has to full the targets of end-use functions. This signicant evolution from
so-called commodity to specialty has been abundantly
commented and can be considered as a major change
of the chemical industry (Amundson, 1988; Charpentier,
1997; Cussler, 1999; Cussler et al., 2002; Favre et al., 2002;
Hegedus, 2005).
(iii) Given the interest of the CPI with products, the number
of scientic papers dedicated to this topic has increased

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Fig. 3 (a) Evolution (unit = thousands) of the number of molecules since 1900. (b) Number of scientic papers (in thousands)
including the keywords formulation and technology () and chemical engineering and product () (Source: Chemical
Abstract Services).

tremendously (Fig. 3b). It could be expected that this

large research effort has provided new tools for engineers
working in a product area, which could be of interest for
chemical engineering education.
(iv) Finally and logically, statistical analyses performed in the
US and in Europe (including in our own department) conrm that an increasing number of chemical engineers are
hired in industry in order to work within a product (and
not strictly process) framework (Cussler, 1999; Cussler et
al., 2002).
Taking into account the evolution detailed through the different items above, three types of answers can be proposed:
(i) First, a business as usual approach, which claims that
the existing curriculum already ts the needs of industry. The fact that no signicant change of the curriculum
has been occurred over the last 40 years, while industry
changed signicantly, can be proposed in order to convince decision makers that the best strategy is to keep the
situation unchanged in chemical engineering education.
(ii) Another possibility consists of a more revolutionary
approach, which calls for an in-depth overhaul of the
curriculum. The so-called curriculum of the future,
recently proposed by a group of experts in the US,
with a strong emphasis on biology and nanosciences
(Armstrong, 2006), can be considered to belong to this
category.
(iii) Finally, an adaptative approach which aims to preserve
the fundamentals of the existing curriculum, with an
emphasis on new teaching units dedicated to current and
emerging needs, can be proposed.

In our department, we decided to apply the last approach

5 years ago. A product-centered or a process-centered elective
path have been developed, in order to take into account the
needs of industry. We give hereafter a brief description of this
new curriculum.

2.

Product vs process engineering

2.1.

Rationale

Starting from the context of a classical chemical engineering curriculum, a series of principles were rst decided in
common, before the development of the new curriculum was
undertaken:
(i) Two distinct electives are proposed: a process-centered
one and a product-centered one. This choice seems to be
more relevant to the types of positions occupied by engineers in industry (Wintermantel, 1999; Hegedus, 2005).
Furthermore, it offers a better distinction between the two
types of teaching features than a classical commodity vs
specialty analysis. Table 2 summarizes the major differences between the product and the process teaching units.
It can be seen that the product engineering challenges
correspond essentially to the domain where chemistry
(molecular scale) and chemical engineering (continuum
scale) overlap. This is typical of the so-called coarse grain
challenge, which is occasionally presented as the major
frontier for chemical engineering methodology in terms
of complexity (Kwauk, 2004).
(ii) The students get the same degree after having completed
one or the other of the electives. In other words, they

Table 2 Process vs product engineering: conceptual framework

Objects
Equilibrium properties
Rate processes
Production
Methodology
Example

Process engineering

Product engineering

Gas, liquid or solid phases

Efcient tools (EOS, GE) Type 1 phase transitions
CFD, CRE, mass and heat transfer
Classical, most often continuous unit operations
Proven: simulation (Aspen), optimization
Vinyl chloride

Complex (multicomponent, heterogeneous)

Metastable, distributed, non-equilibrium systems
Highly non-ideal systems
Unconventional, most often batch operations
To be built
Aspirin tablet

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e25

Fig. 4 Overall framework of the product and process engineering teaching organisation developed in our department
(Ensic, Nancy) since 2000.

become chemical engineers and should be able to discuss

with chemists, process engineers and tackle the problems
of a chemical industry.
(iii) The choice of the product or process elective is free.
(iv) The elective specic teaching units are limited to the last
three semesters of the graduate studies. The rest of the
curriculum is the same for the students.
(v) No supplementary time is allocated to teaching. In other
words, the size of the box (number of hours of teaching),
which has been discussed before, remains unchanged.

2.2.

Curriculum and syllabus

A sketch of the content of the 5 years curriculum is shown

in Fig. 4. A more detailed presentation has been published
earlier (Favre et al., 2005). After 2 years of undergraduate studies, usually performed in France in special classes with a
strong emphasis on mathematics, physics and chemistry, the
students have a classical set of teaching units in common:
chemistry (mineral, organic, analytical, physical), thermodynamics, uid mechanics, transport phenomena, numerical
methods, process control, chemical reaction engineering,
separation processes, process systems engineering and unit
operations. At the end of this three semester period, they are
expected to be able to tackle a design project, for which the
production of a given molecule of target tonnage and purity
is demanded. This capstone (or design) project takes place
after the three semester period and it closes the core chemical
engineering teaching syllabus.
At this stage, the students are asked to choose between
the process or the product elective. A brief overview of the
teaching blocks for each of this elective is given in Table 3.
For the process elective, basically, a large amount of modelling, simulation (CFD, PSE. . .) and optimization is given. The
methodology corresponds to the most advanced methods that
can lead to a rigorous plant or process design. Complementary
teaching units such as safety, energy uses, polymer production
or biotechnology are also provided.
For the product-centered elective, a completely different
situation prevails. The students are rst taught the properties
of mostly colloidal systems (e.g., polymers, surfactants, powders, gels, nely dispersed suspensions), which correspond to
a large majority to formulated products. In a second step, the
largely unconventional processes which are used for product production are described with a chemical engineering
approach: granulation, compaction, spray drying, emulsication, extrusion, coating. . .. It is obvious at this stage that, given
the complexity of the products, the methodology which is provided is not as rigorous and as predictive as the one taught
for the process part. Nevertheless, it is hoped that the con-

cepts and tools which are developed can help the students
to nd their way in the complex product design and engineering framework. A series of characterization techniques,
dedicated to product structure analysis, is also provided. Last
but not least, the students are asked to perform a product
design project based on a team work, according to the four
steps proposed by Cussler and Moggridge (2001): identication
of consumer needs, ideas, selection and design. As examples,
a single dosage gel bead for syrup preparation at home, a uorescent hair gel or a dry sprayable paint for car tuning have
been proposed in the last years. It is expected that, based on
this teaching package, an efcient approach could possibly be
achieved and lead to the selection and the in-depth knowledge of critical manufacturing steps. It is interesting to note
that the latter was considered as the denition of chemical
engineering by Astarita (1990).

2.3.

A 5 year experience feedback

After 5 years of the product vs process experience in our

department, it might be wise to achieve some kind of feedback
in order to evaluate the pros and cons of the new curriculum.
These can be summarized as follows:
(i) First, we notice the difculty in communicating on the
product engineering concept. It is obvious that this term is
rather new (Cussler and Wei, 2003) and that the number of
educational initiatives in this eld remains limited (Costa
et al., 2006). This difculty applies both to people in industry and students. There is a frequent confusion with a
strict chemistry teaching framework (often called formulation), or with materials science (especially for polymer
based products). We have to continuously recall that what
is taught is neither chemistry nor material science, but a
chemical engineering package dedicated to product production.
(ii) In terms of student choice, quite large uctuations
between the two electives have been observed from year
to year. We observe that students that choose the product
elective are usually more open to research and development positions. A large proportion of them continue their
studies to a PhD and a signicant proportion seek to go
abroad after graduating.
(iii) From the teaching philosophy point of view, we still
have questions which remain essentially unsolved. For
example: how and what to teach on biological sciences?
Students have indeed a very limited knowledge in biol
ogy after their 2 years in so-called classes preparatoires
(Fig. 4). It is difcult to identify how to provide to
them the essential concepts in biology within a mini-

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Table 3 An overview of the teaching units and targets for the product engineering and the process engineering electives
Teaching units
Basic Chem. Eng.
Curriculum

Targets

Chemistry (mineral, organic, physical, industrial,

analytical)
Thermodynamics
Fluid mechanics
Transport processes
Chemical reaction engineering
Separation processes
Numerical techniques

Design a process or plant dedicated to the production

of a molecule of given tonnage and purity.

Take into account the environment and safety

aspects.

Process control
Safety
Process systems engineering
Design project
Process engineering
elective

Advanced modelling and simulation techniques

Model, simulate and optimize a chemical engineering

problem from the process point of view.

Computational Fluid Dynamics

Advanced mass transfer and reacting systems
Optimization techniques
Process Intensication
Polymer processing
Biotechnology
Applied energetics
Product engineering
elective

Advances in colloids and interfaces

Polymer science
Powders, granules, tablets

Design product through a chemical engineering

approach.

Rheology
Characterization techniques
Product production processes (mixing, drying,
emulsication, granulation, extrusion. . .)
Selected end-use properties (e.g., controlled release,
biodegradability. . .)
Product design project

mal teaching volume (typically a 20 h teaching block).

Important issues such as the structure and properties
of biomolecules, enzyme and microbial kinetics, genetic
engineering and biotechnology. . . have to be included
somewhere in the syllabus. However, we still wonder
on the best strategy to achieve this purpose. Similarly, molecular modelling seems extremely promising
for understanding structure/property relationships or to
understand how complex molecules or mixtures behave;
but, how far should we go with molecular modelling
teaching? At the moment, we restrict the teaching effort
to a limited series of lectures. Should we increase this
topic? Finally, we have difculties teaching the multiscale
approach, which is often at the heart of the product design
rigorous understanding. How could we teach this? Which
simulation tools should we use for this purpose?
(iv) We have identied, through evaluation forms, the key role
of the product design project. Students usually say that
this exercise is extremely positive since it forces them to
use different concepts and teaching units. At the same
time, they can test their ability in terms of innovation,
which is and more and more asked by industry (Trainham
et al., 2007). Nevertheless, we, teachers, still are completely lost when student address what we call an inverse
problem to us: they identied a consumer need and the
corresponding product properties (step one of the product
design project). But how can we translate the properties
needed into a tentative formula for the product? In our
lectures, an opposite approach is most often used: start-

Tackle the process/product/properties interplay (i.e.,

for complex states of matter).

ing from a formula, such as a polymer in solution for

instance, we try to predict the properties according to scientic tools. Maybe some computing approaches could
be useful to tackle this inverse problem (Westerberg and
Subrahmanian, 2000).
(v) Another difculty arises from the fact that students most
often do not make connections between their subjects.
Apart from the product design project, how might we
stimulate their ability to develop a holistic approach?
(vi) Finally, students are often frustrated that we cannot offer
all of the experimental support that would be needed (or
dreamed of. . .) when they achieve their design project.
To the best, they can carry out some modest tests, but
a rigorous lab scale production and the associated product characterization can hardly be proposed for all the
types of products that they invented. We do not know how
to provide a decent experimental support in order not to
restrain innovation.

3.
Sustainable chemistry: educational
challenges
We will close our paper with a more prospective analysis.
According to industry and experts forecasts, it might be that
the next frontier of chemical engineering education will be
the biology or nanotechnology revolution (National Research
Council Report, 2003). This statement applies particularly for
the US industry and chemical engineering curricula will prob-

e d u c a t i o n f o r c h e m i c a l e n g i n e e r s 3 ( 2 0 0 8 ) e22e27

ably incorporate a large dose of these disciplines in the future

(Armstrong, 2006). In Europe, the need to develop a sustainable
chemical industry is often presented as the inevitable driver
of the future.
Thus, we started to explore to what extent the new curriculum exposed in the previous section would need to be
rebuilt according to sustainable chemistry requirements. A
major conclusion of our analysis is that, while sustainable
chemistry calls for a sound change of the objects that the
chemical engineer will have to be faced to, it does not imply
an in-depth rebuilt of the curriculum. We think that the
best answer is again an evolution of the existing curriculum through tools such as: lab work with molecules from
renewable sources, design project where sustainable chemistry constraints are taken into account, and worked exercises
where the future building blocks or molecules of a sustainable chemistry industry are studied. The application of the
so-called twelve principles of green engineering (McDonough
et al., 2003) within the context of a design project seems to be
of particular relevance.
A very limited number of new teaching units or simply
an extension of already existing topics would be needed: for
instance, energy integration and energy analysis, biotechnology, metrics like Life Cycle Analysis, environmental impact
though greenhouse gases balance.
This analysis is still embryonic and far to be conclusive. Some chemical engineering departments will probably
propose a completely different diagnostic and start novel curricula for teaching sustainable chemical engineering. Again,
we wait for feedback from industry and colleagues to rene
our views in this challenging area.

4.

Conclusion

The rapid changes of chemical industry, together with the

emergence of new scientic and teaching tools, pose a
formidable challenge to chemical engineering teaching. The
evolution of existing curricula demands the identication of a
subtle balance among competing constraints:
take care of dispersive forces (i.e., going too far into domains
such as physics, chemistry or biology),
maintain the roots of the discipline (unifying concepts, built
around balances, equilibrium and transport phenomena),
keep in mind the core identity of a chemical engineer (such
as the ability to effectively communicate and work with
chemists, physicists, biologists, and nd solutions to problems such as from beaker to plant).
We would like to close our paper with a quotation from J.
Prausnitz, which gives what we consider as a clear and relevant denition of a chemical engineer:
An effective chemical engineer is someone who relates his
or her special expertise to other areas of concern, someone
who may focus on one part of a practical problem but also
retains an overall view of where the special area intersects
with others (Prausnitz, 1996).

Acknowledgements
The authors thank the reviewers for their valuable comments
and suggestions.

e27

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