SECTION VI 

 6. THE CHEMICAL ENGINEER IN INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH 



By Sidney D. Kirkpatrick 

 Editor, Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, New York, N. Y. 



ABSTRACT 



Although comparatively a newcomer among the 

 scientific and engineering professions, the chemical 

 engineer has rapidly assimied an important responsi- 

 bility in industry. His work has been largely con- 

 cerned with the development and application of those 

 manufacturing processes that involve chemical and 

 certain physical changes in materials. Thus he finds 

 his principal opportunity in the chemical and so-called 

 "process" industries. 



Chemical engineering research per se is largely con- 

 fined to the improvement of processes through the 

 quantitative study of the fundamental theory under- 

 lying the unit physical operations, such as distillation, 

 evaporation, absorption, filtration, mixing, and agita- 

 tion, and the unit chemical processes, such as oxidation 

 and reduction, chlorination, nitration, and sulphonation. 

 A much broader field of activity hes in "development" 

 work as contrasted with the research of the laboratory. 

 Here the chemical engineer supplements the creative 

 work of the research scientist by translating his labora- 

 tory studies into larger-scale operations. This trans- 

 lation is often effected in the semiworks or pilot plant 

 which has thus come to be known as the true habitat 

 of the chemical engineer. It is here that he studies a 



new process under plant conditions, designs and con- 

 structs the equipment for conmiercial production. 



By training and experience the chemical engineer is 

 often well quahfied to determine the economic feasibility 

 of many research projects. An increasing number of 

 chemical engineers are therefore employed in com- 

 mercial and market studies that help to give direction 

 and effectiveness to programs of technological research. 

 Much of the success of chemical industry in the develop- 

 ment of new products and processes has resulted from 

 the fact that its research has been conducted on an 

 engineering basis from the first selection of the project 

 to the final utilization of the product in the plant of 

 the customer. 



Despite recent progress in chemical engineering re- 

 search, many features of equipment design and opera- 

 tion remain on an empirical basis. They await funda- 

 mental study. There is hkewise abundant opportunity 

 to extend the application of fmidamental data and 

 principles to many industries that have not yet been 

 benefited by this relatively new technology. In the 

 words of a great mining engineer, "Chemical engineer- 

 ing, more than any other, may be called the engineering 

 of the future." 



Research is an important function but scarcely the 

 primary activity of the chemical engineer in industry. 

 His contribution supplements and helps to make effec- 

 tive the work of the research scientist by translating 

 the findings of the laboratory into terms of large-scale 

 plant operations. This is more accurately described 

 as process development work and in many industrial 

 organizations, research and development are closely 

 linked activities. They are usually administered in the 

 same department and it is sometimes difficult to say 

 where the one begins and the other leaves off. 



The relation of development work to the other duties 



of the chemical engineer is evident from the following 



definition of chemical engineering, wliich was suggested 



by the writer in 1935 and has since been adopted by the 



306 



American Institute of Chemical Engineers' Committee 

 on Chemical Engineering Education.' 



Chemical engineering is that branch of engineering concerned 

 with the development and application of manufacturing processes 

 in which chemical and certain physical changes of materials are 

 involved. These processes usually may be resolved into a coor- 

 dinated series of unit physical operations and unit chemical 

 processes. The work of the chemical engineer is concerned pri- 

 marily with the design, construction, and operation of equipment 

 and plants in which these unit operations and processes are ap- 

 plied. Chemistry, physics, and mathematics are the underlying 

 sciences of chemical engineering and economics its guide in 

 practice. 



Chemical engineering, as we know it today, is a com- 



1 Newman, A. B. Development of chemical engineering education in the United 



States. American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Supplement to Tranaaclions, Si, 

 No. 3a, 7(1938). 



