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History: History of Chemical Engineering
History: History of Chemical Engineering
Starting from 1888,[9] Lewis M. Norton taught at MIT the first chemical engineering course in the
United States. Norton's course was contemporaneous and essentially similar with Armstrong's
course. Both courses, however, simply merged chemistry and engineering subjects. "Its practitioners
had difficulty convincing engineers that they were engineers and chemists that they were not simply
chemists."[3] Unit operations was introduced into the course by William Hultz Walker in 1905.[10] By the
early 1920s, unit operations became an important aspect of chemical engineering at MIT and other
US universities, as well as at Imperial College London.[11] The American Institute of Chemical
Engineers (AIChE), established in 1908, played a key role in making chemical engineering
considered an independent science, and unit operations central to chemical engineering. For
instance, it defined chemical engineering to be a "science of itself, the basis of which is ... unit
operations" in a 1922 report; and with which principle, it had published a list of academic institutions
which offered "satisfactory" chemical engineering courses.[12]Meanwhile, promoting chemical
engineering as a distinct science in Britain lead to the establishment of the Institution of Chemical
Engineers (IChemE) in 1922.[13] IChemE likewise helped make unit operations considered essential
to the discipline.[14]
including penicillin and streptomycin.[21] Meanwhile, progress in polymer science in the 1950s paved
way for the "age of plastics".[22]
Recent progress[edit]
Advancements in computer science found applications designing and managing plants, simplifying
calculations and drawings that previously had to be done manually. The completion of the Human
Genome Project is also seen as a major development, not only advancing chemical engineering
but genetic engineering and genomics as well.[25] Chemical engineering principles were used to
produce DNA sequences in large quantities.[26]
Concepts[edit]
Part of a series on
Chemical engineering
Outline
History
Index
Fundamentals
Industry
Engineer
Process
Unit operations
Kinetics
Transport phenomena
Unit processes
Chemical plant
Chemical reactor
Separation processes
Aspects
Heat transfer
Mass transfer
Fluid dynamics
Process design
Process control
Chemical thermodynamics
Reaction engineering
Category
Chemical engineering involves the application of several principles. Key concepts are presented
below.
Process design requires the definition of equipment types and sizes as well as how they are
connected together and the materials of construction. Details are often printed on a Process Flow
Diagram which is used to control the capacity and reliability of a new or modified chemical factory.
Education for chemical engineers in the first college degree 3 or 4 years of study stresses the
principles and practices of process design. The same skills are used in existing chemical plants to
evaluate the efficiency and make recommendations for improvements.
Transport phenomena[edit]
Main article: Transport phenomena
Modeling and analysis of transport phenomena is essential for many industrial applications.
Transport phenomena involve fluid dynamics, heat transfer and mass transfer, which are governed
mainly by momentum transfer, energy transfer and transport of chemical species respectively.
Models often involve separate considerations for macroscopic, microscopic and molecular level
phenomena. Modeling of transport phenomena requires therefore requires an understanding of
applied mathematics.[32]