Introduction
Contemporary research in any branch of engineering is seen of late to
transgress its traditional academic borders to an extent that its
relationship to the embryonic beginnings of the field is often unclear.
This occurrence is a consequence of the notable strides in fundamental
understanding of natural phenomena and its powerfully unifying effect.
In this regard, chemical engineering, in view of its empirical roots,
has had the most striking advances in the last several decades. The
early development of any engineering discipline has been to cater to
some selected societal need (or set of needs) served by the formulation
of core subjects towards maintaining some territorial integrity. Thus,
chemical engineering began naturally by being associated with industrial
chemistry, which was the art of producing chemicals for multifarious
applications towards meeting diverse societal needs. This beginning is
reflected well in the manner in which core chemical engineering
progressed from unit processes to unit operations, and further on to the
use of chemical kinetics and thermodynamics, the framework of continuum
mechanics to study transport processes in fluids, with parallel
development of statistical mechanics and molecular theories.
The use of mathematics in chemical engineering climbed precipitously
during the fifties, sixties, and seventies in the last century with a
healthy influx of analysis particularly in chemical reaction
engineering, fluid mechanics, transport phenomena, and the process
systems area. Graduate core courses in most chemical engineering
departments came to include Transport Phenomena, Thermodynamics,
Chemical Reaction Engineering, and Applied Mathematics. Although these
core courses have remained about the same over the years, there has
occurred some withering of intensity, probably because faculty interests
have tended to shift away from areas that benefit directly from such
background. Not infrequently, junior faculty in pursuit of greener
pastures elsewhere have subconsciously compromised the level at which
core courses are taught. These observations cannot be said to be
emanating from obscure corners of the profession. They seem largely
prevalent viewpoints, often expressed but more often held back. As
mentioned earlier, the objective of this article is to provoke
discussion, at least to the extent of examining the evolutionary course
of the profession. There is the familiar quip of “Chemical Engineering
is what chemical engineers do!” Ignoring the “circularity” of this
definition, we may inquire into whether or not chemical engineering is
served well by such a stance. Arbitrary activity is no one’s objective.
Also, the propitiousness of a researcher’s direction will be tempered by
the response of the profession at large.
This article seeks to argue for a rationally infinite domain for the
creativity of chemical engineers to flourish by formulating inquiries as
to whether or not their activity results in some attributes on which we
could expect some degree of consensus. While some attributes may not be
contested, others could spark debate:
- As all research, engineering research must be creative as well as
impactful. The focus of most researchers is impact as expressed by
citations and, perhaps to a lesser extent, through recognition by a
professional arm of the field as awards or keynote invitations to
perspective conferences.
- Contributions by chemical engineers must display some distinctive
traits which must contribute to the solution of a significant problem.
In the absence of such traits, the researcher’s message is subsumed
into the multitude of contributions in the field of application by
researchers more directly connected to the subject. The area of
biology, which represents perhaps the most exciting opportunity for
chemical engineers to contribute creatively, is a particular case in
point. Often, the only response to a question on relevance of the
research to chemical engineering has been that the scale of
observation is a reactor which does not attract the attention of a
biologist. While reactor-scale work is certainly of importance, the
contribution derives merit not from the scale of the observed system
but from how the reactor is coaxed to work with quantitative use of
biological principles.
- A traditional chemical engineering audience often views askance
research seminars that are stacked with biological facts or hypotheses
without a lateral conduit to a clarifying conceptual source in
chemical engineering for interpretation.
- Another measure that seems important for chemical engineering activity
in a different field is its potential to modify or enhance the core.
Indeed, this feature is tied to securing core strength towards
preserving a more liberal version of “territorial integrity” than
before; “more liberal” implying generality rather than insularity.
One may inquire into whether or not the contribution of engineers is
generating new perspectives by virtue of tools that define the parent
discipline, and further if this experience has widened as well as
sharpened the tools that were used.
- As in all other areas of science and engineering, opportunities abound
in chemical engineering for the use of data science, machine learning,
and artificial intelligence methods in dealing with complex systems.
Our deliberations will focus on biology, on which chemical engineering
has had a major impact. Not surprisingly, many ChE departments have
added “biological” or “biomolecular” engineering to their names.
However, we begin with briefly reflecting on the traditional core areas,
starting first with applied mathematics and transport phenomena.