Product Engineering: Some Challenges for Chemical Engineers

Abstract

Over many decades, teaching and research in chemical engineering were largely directed towards the oil refining and commodity chemicals industries. However, changes in the structure of the process industries have placed an increased emphasis on the manufacture of speciality chemicals and consumer products. Such products, for both industrial and domestic use, often possess a microstructure on the scale of 1–1000 μm which is created specifically to meet the user needs. There are significant challenges to chemical engineers in developing relevant teaching and research for the processing of such products. Chemical engineers are well placed to apply process engineering concepts to the design of manufacturing equipment on the scale unit operations. However, there are challenges to ‘stretch the boundaries of chemical engineering’ so that appropriate teaching and research can be developed which is relevant to product microstructure at a lower scale, and to the supply chain at a much larger scale. Suggestions are made for teaching and research which can fit chemical engineers to identify and solve important issues of product design, product use, supply chain optimization and sustainability.In research, a multi-disciplinary approach will often be needed involving, e.g., chemistry, colloid science, measurement science, computation modelling, materials science, complex systems analysis and environmental science. In teaching, case studies should be developed as a means of providing students with an awareness of issues of product innovation, supply chain optimization, sustainability and consumer demand.