You might be a Chemical Engineer if...!!!

• You have a favorite pump manufacturer.
• You are planning to install a scrubber on you kitchen chimney.
• Somebody mentions stimulation and you take it as simulation.
• You can size distillation column in head but need a pencil and paper to calculate tip for dinner.
• You associate word beautiful and sexy with a butterfly valve.
• While extinguishing a small fire using a CO2 cylinder you are thinking of the temperature drop due to Joule-Thomson effect.
• You see a good design and still have to change it.
• You know who invented Jell-O.
• You think "cuddling" is simply an unproductive application of heat exchange.
• You've actually used every single function on your graphing calculator.
• You have any of the following personalized items:
  • Hard hat
  • Safety goggles
  • Calculator case
  • Slide rule

• You know the direction the water swirls when you flush.
• You'd really like to have a T-shirt that says "Chemical Engineers Do It In Fluidised   Beds"
• You think the value of a book is directly proportionate to the amount of tables, charts and graphs it contains.
• Your three-year-old son asks why the sky is blue and you try to explain atmospheric absorption theory.
• You have a psychrometric chart on the side table next to your bed
• While washing your face in your bathroom you holler to your wife that today the water flow is "laminar".
• You find your wife getting late for the party and you start lecturing her on "Mean Time Between Failure".
• Every time while drinking a bottled beverage you try read the composition of the beverage from the beverage label.
• You refer to your children as your "pilot units".
• You think of the Carnot cycle everytime you turn on your AC unit.
• When you look at objects in the distance and think of mean free path.
• You explain surface tension to your 10 year old when they ask why you are adding oil to boiling spaghetti.
• You make your own shampoo!
• You read this page for the first time on a Saturday night.
• You try to explain entropy to strangers at your table during casual dinner conversation.

You know you are chemical engineer if you really have read this from top to bottom.

Books for Chemical Engineering

Chemical Engineering is a very vast field of study. A lot choices of courses are available and with each course there are hundreds of book to choose from. Today we will talk about some books that can be consulted for basic understanding of chemical engineering - 

• Transport Phenomena by Bird, Stewart and Lightfoot - Good book for grasping fundamental knowledge of mass and momentum transfer. 
• Elements of Chemical Reaction Engineering by H. Scott Fogler - A very good book for CRE. You can also consult CRE by Levenspiel. 
• Unit Operations of Chemical Engineering by Mccabe, Smith and Harriot - Covers topic on unit operations. 
• Mass Transfer Operation by Robert Treybal - Although somewhat difficult to follow but has more than enough content about mass transfer operations. 
• Process Heat Transfer by D Q Kern - Covers elementary topics on heat transfer and heat exchangers. 
• Chemical Process Control by George Stephanopoulos - Good book written in lucid style and covers process dynamics and control. 

These are basic books and covers introductory material on chemical engineering. There are many other good books available. You should consult your professor for which book to follow. 

What is Chemical Engineering?

A chemical engineer is someone who knows enough physics/mechanics to confuse a chemist, enough chemistry to confuse a physicist/mechanical engineer and enough mathematics to confuse himself.

In Layman's term, Chemical Engineer is a guy that helps in production of things at a large level. He is one who studies processes, design a plant and equipment and also runs the plant.  

Suppose you have a secret Lemonade recipe which is admired by everyone. Now you want to commercialize it i.e. you want to sold it at a very large level. Now the process will involve many steps like taking juice out of lemons, mixing that juice with water, mixing sugar and your secret ingredient etc. You obviously has no idea how to do it? So a chemical or process engineer will come to your rescue. It will design a process  i.e. he/she will tell you that first crushing of Lemons will take place then juice will be mixed in a agitator tank etc. After that he/she will design equipment for this process. When plant is setup, he/she will also help to run it. 

Thus Chemical engineering is most exciting field to major in. It beautifully blends physics, chemistry and mathematics. A chemical engineer is somewhat between mechanical engineer and chemist having a sound knowledge of mathematics. 

Chemical engineers SCALE UP the chemical reactions performed in laboratory to produce the desired chemical on a industrial scale (in a economical way). Now to do this one has to have a understanding of - micro, meso and macro scale processes, which is taught during the course. 

Interestingly a lot of mathematics is involved, than one would normally think, while studying chemical engineering. People generally think that Chemical engineering involves a lot of chemistry but it is not so. Thermodynamics and Kinetics are covered extensively. Reaction engineering (which is covered kinetics) makes it different from other branches of engineering. 

Broadly Chemical Engineering can be classified into 2 groups - 

• Designing, manufacturing and operating plants and related machinery and processes - Chemical Process Engineers.  
• Development of new or adapted substances for products ranging from pharma industry to automobiles to cosmetic industry - Chemical Product Engineers. 

Chemical engineers basically study mass,heat and momentum balance. There are wide array of subjects which a chemical engineer studies during his undergrad. The wide spectrum of specialization makes this a very promising field in term of careers.  They usually specializes in one of the following subjects - 

• Process Modelling and Simulation
• Computer Aided Design
• Reaction Engineering
• Control and Optimization
• Safety and Hazard Analysis
• Computational Fluid dynamics, Rheology, Fluid Mechanics
• Separation Processes
• Thermodynamics
• Bioprocess and food engineering
• Pollution and control
• Nanotechnology
• Material Science
• Bio-engineering
• Transport Phenomena
• Catalysis 
• Energy Studies

Thus chemical engineer touch everyone's life right from start of the day till night. So if you want to make new products and help mankind chemical engineering is right for you. 

Scope of Chemical Engineering

In layman's term, A chemical engineer is a guy that helps in production of things on a large scale. He is one which studies a process, design plant and equipment and also runs the plant. As you see i have divided work into three broad categories and the job conditions are different for these. Lets tackle them one by one- 

• Research -  You will find many chemical engineers involve in research. These are the guys that study processes and try to find out the best way to produce a thing on large level, both safely and economically. They also try to improve existing processes.Some of the guys also work in hardcore science like ionic chemistry (battery etc.) , nanotechnology, biotechnology (yup chemical engineers have really very wide options when it comes to research.) If you have interest in computational science then you may do research in fluid dynamics etc.If you want to go in research field then you have to do MS/M.Tech and then PhD. It will take around 9-10 years after class 12. People usually prefer doing PhD abroad as research facilities are not good in India.   

     After your PhD either you can do research in a university or you can join R&D department of a company. If          you want to be a scientist i will suggest you to go to US as they have better working conditions and                    good pay scale.Working hours will be like an usual office hours. If you join an university you will have flexible        working hours and you can work as you like.                                                                                                      

• Designing - If you have interest in design you can opt for these type of jobs. These companies usually design a process and related equipment. They also design plants. Some of the companies include - Engineers India Limited (EIL), Flour, KBR, Shell etc. You can join these companies after your graduation. Its a normal office like work i.e. 9-5 job. EIL usually give 8.5 lakhs/annum to freshers. Other companies also give handsome salaries. Job conditions are good and if you like challenging stuff this is the best job for you. The companies in this field are usually MNC's so its highly probable that you will get exposure to various countries and industries.

                                                                                  

• Production- These companies are involved in production of materials on large scales. These includes fertilizers,petroleum, pharmaceuticals, etc. There are many companies in this field like ONGC,IOCL,BPCL,HPCL,GAIL,HUL,Proctor andGamble,Reliance,Cairn,Tata Chemicals,RCF,Asian Paints etc. You have various options to choose from. Petrochemical companies usually pay very handsomely. BPCL pays around 11.5 lakhs/annum in Mumbai to freshers, which is quit high for a government job. The engineers in this field are highest paid. If you plan to go to abroad you will even get higher pays and there are many companies out there like Schlumberger, BP, Chevron, Exxon Mobil etc. The work condition is little bit hard in this filed as you have to work in plant or rig etc. Usually these are located outside of city and sometimes even in mid of sea. You can join these companies after graduation. Working hours are not flexible and you have to be ready for overtime as emergencies may occur at any time.                                                                                                                                              
  

Although majority of people opt for job after graduation. It is recommended to go for MS as it increases your skills.