Hello!
Welcome, to all my dear Chemical Engineers and the rest of the readers who are curious about knowing what Chemical Engineering is all about.
Chemical Engineering is one of the oldest branches of engineering. It is the past, present and future of Engineering and Chemical Engineering is the most basic of art, science and technology. Actually, in your day-to-day life, your mornings start with your using the products prepared by a chemical engineer.
- Toothpaste - whatever those ayurvedic and organic stuff say, the base for a toothpaste is prepared chemically and involves abrasives, minerals and surfactants that are manufactured in chemical industries.
- Coffee Powder - Leaching followed by spray drying are used in Coffee Powder preparation, which I am sure you would agree are Chemical Engineering Operations.
- Milk - You would be surprised to know that Dairy Industry is a part and parcel of Chemical Industries. Milk powder preparation involves spray or freeze drying. Casein extraction, conversion of whey into lactose, preparation of cream, etc. all these involve chemical engineering operations.
- Utensils - Needless to say, Steel and Copper, and of course, Aluminum are unequivocally manufactured under the supervision of chemical engineer.
- Electronic Gadget Parts - Yeah so a computer science engineer and electronics engineer boast about making a computer, but then what about those tiny silicon chips embedded in them? A chemical engineer made it! Right on!
- Mattresses and Pillows - Fluffy stuff? Ever wondered what makes them so fluffy? Those Styrofoam beads and fillings, you know, are prepared by us chemical engineers!
So these are a few things that chemical engineers do in daily life, which means, that as long as you are eating food, breathing oxygen and living under a roof, you will need a chemical engineer to provide the means to you!
Remember, Chemical Engineering is not for the faint-hearted.
This is the most primitive engineering science which has branched out too much that it has become confusing. So now there is a chemical engineer, a mineral processing engineer, a ceramic engineer, a petroleum engineer, a metallurgy engineer, a biochemical engineer, a pollution control engineer, a chemical automated design engineer, a process engineer, an energy engineer, etc. etc., all of whom, in a basic sense, are chemical engineers.
So you have these massive age bent syllabus to study, large number of process flow diagrams to understand and huge amount of terminology to remember. But, it will be fun.
You get to mix up chemicals in chemistry labs, play with water at fluids lab (P.S. don't drink it, it's mostly recycled), break coal and weigh sand in separations lab, climb ladders of distillation towers and pretend to be firemen in mass transfer lab, warm your backs during cold winters in heat transfer labs, learn how to control flow and temperature in process control lab, pretend barbecuing over your fires at thermal engineering lab and fight over who has to bring samples for testing water purity at Pollution Control lab.
You don't sit hours together in front of computers in AC chambers. Rather by the strength of your back and the sweat over your 'brows, you work hard both mentally and physically. You will have field works where you get tanned or sometimes stay hours in a lab trying to make it work. But at the end of the day, you will smile and think about it all again.
As for getting Jobs, you will get them if you are a dedicated Chemical Engineer. Field jobs are massively risky, hence the industries employ only the best of the best. Apart from Field jobs, you have a huge number of Research and Development area where you can patent a wide range of ever expanding Chemical Engineering Developments. You can also teach, after you get a Post Grad degree.
The way our ancestors ground herbs to make medicines, thats chemical engineering. The way they mixed mud in specific proportions that made houses, thats chemical engineering. They way they churned milk to cream, thats chemical engineering. One may argue that its pharmacy, biochemistry, whatever, still in its primitive form, that was all chemical engineering.
Next time there's someone asks what does a chemical engineer knows that the others don't, just give them a knowing smile and say, "it all started with chemical engineering".
Remember, Chemical Engineering is not for the faint-hearted.
This is the most primitive engineering science which has branched out too much that it has become confusing. So now there is a chemical engineer, a mineral processing engineer, a ceramic engineer, a petroleum engineer, a metallurgy engineer, a biochemical engineer, a pollution control engineer, a chemical automated design engineer, a process engineer, an energy engineer, etc. etc., all of whom, in a basic sense, are chemical engineers.
So you have these massive age bent syllabus to study, large number of process flow diagrams to understand and huge amount of terminology to remember. But, it will be fun.
You get to mix up chemicals in chemistry labs, play with water at fluids lab (P.S. don't drink it, it's mostly recycled), break coal and weigh sand in separations lab, climb ladders of distillation towers and pretend to be firemen in mass transfer lab, warm your backs during cold winters in heat transfer labs, learn how to control flow and temperature in process control lab, pretend barbecuing over your fires at thermal engineering lab and fight over who has to bring samples for testing water purity at Pollution Control lab.
You don't sit hours together in front of computers in AC chambers. Rather by the strength of your back and the sweat over your 'brows, you work hard both mentally and physically. You will have field works where you get tanned or sometimes stay hours in a lab trying to make it work. But at the end of the day, you will smile and think about it all again.
As for getting Jobs, you will get them if you are a dedicated Chemical Engineer. Field jobs are massively risky, hence the industries employ only the best of the best. Apart from Field jobs, you have a huge number of Research and Development area where you can patent a wide range of ever expanding Chemical Engineering Developments. You can also teach, after you get a Post Grad degree.
The way our ancestors ground herbs to make medicines, thats chemical engineering. The way they mixed mud in specific proportions that made houses, thats chemical engineering. They way they churned milk to cream, thats chemical engineering. One may argue that its pharmacy, biochemistry, whatever, still in its primitive form, that was all chemical engineering.
Next time there's someone asks what does a chemical engineer knows that the others don't, just give them a knowing smile and say, "it all started with chemical engineering".
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