History of chemical engineering

Created by/ Ahmed Reda

ID: 2022087
 Contents

1. Introduction

2. A Brief History of Chemical Engineering

3. Origin

4. The Father of Chemical Engineering

5. Recognizing Chemical Engineering as a Profession

6. New trends for design towards sustainability in

chemical engineering: Green engineering
7. References
Introduction

Why did you choose to work toward becoming a chemical or bioengineer? Was it
the starting salary? Did you have a role model who was a chemical or bioengineer,
or did you live in a community in which engineers were prominent? Or were you
advised that you would do well as a chemical or bioengineer because you were
adept at math and chemistry and/or biology? In fact, most prospective engineers
choose this field without fully understanding the profession (i.e., what chemical
and bioengineers actually do and what they are capable of doing). This brief
chapter will attempt to shed some light on this issue.

Chemical and bioengineers today hold a unique position at the interface between
molecular sciences and macroscopic (large-scale) engineering. They participate in
a broad range of technologies in science and engineering projects, involving nano-
materials, semiconductors, and biotechnology. Note that we say “participate”
because engineers most often work in multidisciplinary groups, each member
contributing his or her own expertise.

A Brief History of Chemical Engineering

Chemical engineering is a discipline that was developed out of those practicing
"industrial chemistry" in the late 19th century. Before the Industrial Revolution
(18th century), industrial chemicals and other consumer products such as soap
were mainly produced through batch processing. Batch processing is labour-
intensive and individuals mix predetermined amounts of ingredients in a vessel,
heat, cool or pressurize the mixture for a predetermined length of time. The
product may then be isolated, purified and tested to achieve a saleable product.
Batch processes are still performed today on higher value products, such as
pharmaceutical intermediates, speciality and formulated products such as perfumes
and paints, or in food manufacture such as pure maple syrups, where a profit can
still be made despite batch methods being slower and inefficient in terms of labour
and equipment usage.
Due to the application of Chemical Engineering techniques during manufacturing
process development, larger volume chemicals are now produced through
continuous "assembly line" chemical processes. The Industrial Revolution was
when a shift from batch to more continuous processing began to occur. Today
commodity chemicals and petrochemicals are predominantly made using
continuous manufacturing processes whereas speciality chemicals, fine chemicals
and pharmaceuticals are made using batch processes.

Origin
Although the chemical engineering field owes its existence to Democritus, a Greek
philosopher who proposed the concept of the atom around 440 BC, this event
technically relates to chemistry. The proposal of an atom led to further
developments in chemistry throughout the ages, eventually culminating in the
advent of industrial chemistry. Industrial chemistry is where the story of chemical
engineering truly begins.
Before the Industrial Revolution, industrial chemicals were produced via batch
production, limited by the amount of reagents used to produce them. The Industrial
Revolution created a serious demand for industrial chemicals and strained the
limited resources produced by batch production. Something needed to be done so
that resource production could keep up with the newly inflated demand.
The Industrial Revolution led to an unprecedented escalation in demand, both with
regard to quantity and quality, for bulk chemicals such as soda ash. This meant two
things: one, the size of the activity and the efficiency of operation had to be
enlarged, and two, serious alternatives to batch processing, such as continuous
operation, had to be examined.
The chemical engineering profession evolved from the industrial applications of
chemistry and separation science (the study of separating components from
mixtures), primarily in the refining and chemical industry, which we will refer to
here as the chemical process industries (CPI). The first high-volume chemical
process was implemented in 1823 in England for the production of soda ash, which
was used for the production of glass and soap.
During the same time, advances in organic chemistry led to the development of
chemical processes for producing synthetic dyes from coal for textiles, starting in
the 1850s. In the latter half of the 1800s a number of chemical processes were
implemented industrially, primarily in Britain.

Industrial chemistry was recognized as the production of valuable products from

raw materials via chemical and physical processes. Developing and controlling
these processes, however, was viewed as separate. This separate discipline
eventually became known as “chemical engineering”.

And in 1887 a series of lectures on chemical engineering which summarized

industrial practice in the chemical industry was presented in Britain. These lectures
stimulated interest in the United States and to some degree led to the formation of
the first chemical engineering curriculum at MIT in 1888. Over the next 10 to 15
years a number of U.S. universities embraced the field of chemical engineering by
offering fields of study in this area. In 1908, the American Institute of Chemical
Engineers was formed and since then has served to promote and represent the
interests of the chemical engineering community.

The father of chemical engineering: George E. Davis

Industrial chemistry was being practiced in the 1800s, and its study at British
universities began with the publication by Friedrich Ludwig Knapp, Edmund
Ronalds and Thomas Richardson of the important book Chemical Technology in
1848. By the 1880s the engineering elements required to control chemical
processes were being recognized as a distinct professional activity. Chemical
engineering was first established as a profession in the United Kingdom after the
first chemical engineering course was given at the University of Manchester in
1887 by George E. Davis in the form of twelve lectures covering various aspects of
industrial chemical practice. As a consequence George E. Davis is regarded as the
world's first chemical engineer. Today, chemical engineering is a highly regarded
profession. Chemical engineers with experience can become licensed Professional
Engineers in the United States, aided by the National Society of Professional
Engineers, or gain "Chartered" chemical-engineer status through the UK-based
Institution of Chemical Engineers.
Davis’ contributions to the discipline of chemical engineering do not stop there.
Through his consulting business, he became well versed in chemical engineering
concepts. This led him to found the Chemical Trade Journal in 1887 where he
regularly published his ideas on chemical engineering. The articles in the Journal,
which were mainly on British chemical industry operating practices, served as the
basis for a famous series of 12 lectures at Manchester Technical College in 1887.

Davis’ work in his consulting business and the contents of his lecture series
became the basis for his most famous publication: the Handbook of Chemical
Engineering, published in 1901. Among other things, this textbook introduced the
concept of unit operations (although not named as such until 1915 by Arthur D.
Little) and was where he first used the term “chemical engineering”.

Davis also tried to rename the Society of Chemical Industry, a London-based

society for chemists, as the Society of Chemical Engineers. That name quickly
faded into obscurity as members of the Society of Chemical Industry resisted the
name change. However, Davis’ efforts weren’t for naught. It was recognized that
an association for chemical engineers should be formed. Today, the two most well-
known are the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the Institution of
Chemical Engineers.

Recognizing chemical engineering as a profession

Chemical engineering started to become a recognized profession when formal
chemical engineering education was developed. There were courses in industrial
chemistry and other areas of chemistry, but none which specifically tackled
chemical engineering concepts.

The world’s first four-year curriculum in chemical engineering was developed in

1888 by Lewis M. Norton, a chemistry professor at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. He was inspired both by the advancement of the German chemical
process industry and by Davis’ lecture series.
Norton died in 1893 having seen students graduate from his program. The first
class had seven graduates. Frank H. Thorpe took over the program and worked to
refine it. In 1898, he published the first chemical engineering textbook: Outlines of
Industrial Chemistry. While Davis is viewed as the father of the discipline of
chemical engineering, Norton and Thorpe can be considered to be the fathers of
chemical engineering education.

The first publication dedicated to chemical engineering, The Chemical Engineer,

came about in 1903. This publication included articles on industrial chemistry and
chemical engineering. In 1908, the first association dedicated to chemical
engineering, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers was formed after
members of the American Chemical Society recognized the need for a separate
association for chemical engineers. When the Institute was formed, it had fewer
than 1,000 members; today, it has more than 60,000 members.
New trends for design towards sustainability in
chemical engineering: Green engineering
Nearly twenty years away from the first definition of sustainable development and
sustainability sentences like ‘much remain to be done in the areas of sustainability’
or ‘the underlying science is still far from exact and we all still need to make a big
effort’ are common introducing and/or concluding phrases in both literature and
scientific forums. Hopefully, in the last years underlying science has been
promoted and clarified and as a result of this a coloured variety of successful
industrial and academic examples of sustainable products, processes and
production systems are now available.

The concept of sustainability was first mentioned in scientific literature by the

German Miner Hans Carl von Carlowitz referring to sustainable forestry
in “Sylvicultura oeconomica” in 1713. There, sustainability meant cutting only as
much timber as was regrowing, with forestry having to ensure that soil fertility was
maintained or even increased.
In the 1960s the emerging environmental philosophy was engendered among
visionaries such as Rachel Carson who published her alert Silent Spring in 1962
[1]. Nevertheless, it was only after the publication of a report entitled ‘Our
Common Future’ by the Brundtland commission in 1987 when the full idea of
sustainable development settled down in the whole international scientific
community [2], [3].

The definition provided by the commission left space for various interpretations
certainly on purpose. At the Rio Conference in 1992 and over the years which
followed, the content of this concept was defined more precisely, and it has been
confirmed since through a wide range of agreements, national programmes, action
plans and scientific studies [4]. Today there are very few scientific, societal and
political areas which have not been the subject of an examination based on
sustainability criteria. It should be noted that sustainable development is a
continuing process during which the definitions and activities it generates are in
constant evolution. The evolutionary process which consists of reflecting on how
we can ensure that our descendants have a decent future and assuming
responsibility for our actions is in itself positive, although there is also the risk that
theory will be put into practice in a number of different ways, creating a highly
complex situation. It is for this reason that there are many different interpretations
of what constitutes sustainability and sustainable development, a term which is
often misused well-worn concept to serve particular interests. An analysis of the
definition is presented in text trying to clarify the meaning of sustainability within
the area of chemical engineering.

The hackneyed argument that the welfare state of modern society lies on a range of
products that are produced in different chemical processes throughout the world
and that ‘unfortunately’ this has caused severe damage to the environment is
applicable once more [5], [6]. As Albert Einstein observed we are facing these
consequences now and as he pointed out the urgent problems that exist in the
world ‘today’ cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them. For us,
our thinking (read here engineering disciplines) must evolve (be transformed) in
such an innovative ways that can reconcieve the problems (starting from scratch?)
providing the world with novel sustainable solutions.

A great variety of questions arise. What do and do not contribute to the sustainable
development? What can a Chemical Engineer (CE) do to assure that a product, a
process or a production system, PPS, is sustainable? What can a CE do to
transform engineering disciplines in order to promote sustainability? Is Green
Engineering (GE) the solution for CEs? Is it necessary to change minds at the
industry, at professionals, at universities or users? How can we tackle the problem?

In the manuscript the state-of-the-art of Green Engineering and a range of novel

disciplines that are basic inspiring philosophies are discussed in detail. First, a
review of the concept of sustainable development and its significance for the
chemical and process industry is presented. Then, several inspiring philosophies
and disciplines which are or will be the basement of the future designs are briefly
reviewed. These disciplines are the health spa to understand current and future
design trend lines in Chemical Engineering. The core of the manuscript is a deep
review of what has been done in GE so far, including its main definitions and
scope of application, different frameworks for design and several legal aspects,
specifically the European Directive. Several illustrative industrial applications and
case studies are included to present the tangible side of the discipline. In order to
help in the design process, different tools oriented to GE are listed and analysed.
Finally, some educational considerations are included considering that green
engineers must be formed at early stages of the training period (‘from the cradle to
the cradle’).
REFERENCES

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6. D.T. Allen et al. Green engineering: environmentally conscious design of
chemical processes and products AIChE J. (2001)
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chemistry Acc. Chem Res. (2002)