Should we rename chemical engineering? There's very little chemistry involved at all...

should we rename chemical engineering? There's very little chemistry involved at all. it should be called process engineering

pic not related

sure

so what now? why did making this thread not actually change the name?

>There's very little chemistry involved at all

There's only one class of Chem. You spend more time on physics and math

No it should be called tube engineering.

This.

In Germany it was already changed from "Chemieingenieurwesen" to "Verfahrenstechnik".

>one class of chem

what?

>gen chem I
>gen chem II
>gen chem I L
>gen chem II L
>O chem I
>O chem II
>O chem I L
>A chem
>A chem L
>P chem I
>P chem II
>P chem I L
>option for 3 credits of chem as elective

no chem?

its literally "applied chemistry on an industrial scale"

Even though process engineering would be more accurate, it is a more abstract name and would have less apeal to youngs choosing their futures.

>its literally "applied chemistry on an industrial scale"
No. Seriously, no. Most of it is not really important. The important ones are kinetics and thermodynamics, which are, together with transport phenomena, the core of chemical engineering.

>chemical kinetics
>chemical thermodynamics

yes, these are the most important.

how the fuck do you not consider that chemistry lol

I have a process engineering job for plant management of (arguably) the largest biofuel producer in the nation. My SME is water quality, cooling towers, boilers and reverse osmosis and microfiltration for the plants.

literally everything to do with water quality is chemistry
>boiler treatments: polymeric non-heavy metal antiscalent / corrosion prevention
>boiler return line treatment: combination amine CO2 scrubbing chemicals to prevent carboxylic acid formation and pH change in boiler return lines (pH causes corrosion in standard steel lines)
>sodium hypo chlorite in combination with bacterial / organic biodispersants
>reverse osmosis units handling ion chemistry, dealing with water and ion management between permeate and reject

and there's fuck loads more
>distillation columns
literally chemical thermodynamic equilibrium, dealing with azeotropes (water ethanol)

>molecular sieves / selective adsorption: using 3 angstrom ceramic zeolite to selectively adsorb water to surpass the ethanol:water azeotrope and make 200 proof booze for fuel grade

like, I'm just confused how you even begin to consider that this isn't applied chemistry. thats literally, EXACTLY what it is!

Do you have a weird definition of chemistry? Like, if its not research in a lab about some super niche, super advanced brand new technology / chemical / drug / etc then its not chemistry?

Don't get me wrong, chemistry is a valuable thing and I would never imply that chemical engineering is exactly = chemistry, but there is WAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY more than enough over lap to call it "chemical engineering"

additionally I'd like to point out that a HUGE chunk of "process engineers" are NOT chemical engineers - they're mechanical engineers.

Mechanical engineers only have to take like
>gen chem I
>gen chem II
>gen chem IL
>SOMETIMES gen chem II L

>how the fuck do you not consider that chemistry lol
What I meant was "The important (classes of chemistry) ones are kinetics and thermodynamics". Sorry for not being clear.

oh.

then why did you say no?

There are only something like 30k chem engineers for all of the US. It's a tiny profession overall. Nobody gives a shit what they're called.

Because there are more than applied chemistry in chemical engineering, like separation process not envolving chemicals and equilibrium calculations, or process control.
I'm just an undergrad, though, so I may be biased by the fact there's not much chemistry (besides physical-chemistry) in my classes.

It seems to depend on the school. Chemfag here, the """chemical""" engineering students here don't take anything past gen chem, but in other schools they do more
>tfw my chemistry department is a shell of what it used to be, all the greatest researchers either retired or moved

Well I'm a chemical engineer and I do no process engineering, which is only a subset of cheme, in any of my current work ((molecular dynamics, material design and computational thermo).

ChemE is fine, everyone important enough knows what it is.

Also we do enough chemisty. The only undergrad level chemistry class we didn't cover is inorganic chemistry and synthesis/o-chem III.

Just curious why do you say this lol? Does a actual job as a chem engineer involve fucking with glass tubes all day?

Plz tranzlate

Let me tell you about the tubes user.


Piping is the most efficient form of transport on the planet. In addition the most efficient reactors for most processes are often PFRs, shell and tube heat exchangers are also used in some form or another on nearly every plant.

Everything important; the life blood of the economy, all medications, electricity generating fluids, the materials in your shitty iphone- it all passed through the tubes.

Chemical Engineers are the keepers of the tubes.

Process engineering, just use google translate.

Yea I was doing my own ad hoc translation, and i came up with ''transportation techniques''

Chemical engineering is a really broad field. Process engineering is just one part of it. Don't get caught up in college courses.

How much chemistry you do depends on where you angle your career.

t. chemical engineer doing drug design

>t. chemical engineer doing drugs
That's how I read it at first.

Goes hand in hand. Concentrating in Biomolecular here