The Emergence of Chemical Engineering

In the same period, Walker and Lewis, along with Columbia University s Milton C. Whitaker, a Coloradan who alternated between industrial and academic careers, were the vanguard of those developing the laboratory course for the emerging discipline. What they wrought came to be known later as the unit operations laboratory [23]. 

A unique development at MIT was the School of Chemical Engineering Practice, an industry-academia cooperative master s course at a high, practical level it was proposed by Little in the same 1915 report, backed by George Eastman of Eastman Kodak, tried out under Walker s direction, interrupted by U.S. entry into the war, and restarted in 1920. Still an expensive educational scheme, it continues alone to this day. Its closest relatives are the relatively few progeny of another innovation of that era, the coop- 

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The emergence of chemical engineering as a professional field of specialized knowledge was catalyzed to a major extent by the systematic classification of apparatus in terms of the Unit Operations. With further progress, the design methods evolved for particular apparatus types have proved equally applicable to other unit operations similar in physical arrangement, material and energy balances, rate behavior, and phase equilibrium. Thus there has been a very extensive development of parallel calculation methods for the separation operations conducted under countercurrent flow conditions—the fluid-fluid operations of distillation, absorption, and extraction. 

The concept of residence time distribution (RTD) and its importance in flow processes first developed by Danckwerts (1953) was a seminal contribution to the emergence of chemical engineering science. An introduction to RTD theory is now included in standard texts on chemical reaction engineering. There is also an extensive literature on the measmement, theory, and application of residence time distributions. A literature search returns nearly 5000 references containing the concept of residence time distribution and some 30 000 references dealing with residence time in general. This chapter necessarily provides only a brief introduction the references provide more comprehensive treatments. 

Figure 8-3 A fire in a giant floating roof crude oil tank. Courtesy of the Institution of Chemical Engineers. This photo can be found in Hazard Workshop Module No. 6, Preventing Emergencies in the Process Industries, Volume 1. ...

Brief introductions (and simple examples) of advanced and emerging applications of thermodynamics. Thermodynamics is central to the practice of chemical engineering and to the curriculum for example, phase equilibria is the basis for most separation and purification processes, and energy balances are needed in many areas, including reactor design. However, in my teaching experience, I have found that students do... 

The Institution of Chemical Engineers emerged in Britain only in 1922, that is fully fourteen years after its American older sister. A sister association it was indeed, for close ties were established between the two societies from the very start ... 

Why was the Dutch Chemical Society founded relatively late, and how can we explain the hybrid nature of the society These were the questions posed at the start of this chapter. I hope to have shown that there were several reasons for the late establishment of the NCV. In the first place, there was an extensive network of local scientific societies in the Netherlands that also paid attention to chemistry. This made it less urgent for academic chemists to found a national discipline-oriented society. Secondly, the Netherlands did not have a dominant metropolitan centre, and therefore there was no town whose local chemical society could develop into a national one. The fact that there were also tensions between the Amsterdam chemical school and the Leiden school was an extra reason why the initiative for a national society could not come from academic circles. The third, and final, reason for the late emergence of the NCV was the relatively late industrialization of the Netherlands, and the late expansion of applied chemical research. Only in the 1890s, when agricultural experimental stations and analytical laboratories flourished, and the number of chemical engineers grew rapidly, were the conditions fulfilled for the establishment of a profession-oriented chemical society. 

The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AlChe) was founded in 1908 and now has a membership of 40,000 chemical engineering professionals from 93 countries. AIChE provides resources and expertise to support professional development and growth across the breadth of chemical engineering, from core process industries to emerging areas, such as nanobiotechnology. 

Stanley Grossel/ President, Proce.ss Safety h- Design, Inc. Fellow, American Institute of Chemical Engineers Member, American Chemical Society Member, The Combustion Institute Member, Explosion Protection Sy.stems Committee ofNFPA. (Emergency Relief Device Effluent Collection and Handling)... 

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