Chemical and Process Engineering

 

Chemical and Process Engineering (in German: Verfahrenstechnik) is the discipline of the researching, developing and technical appliance of new processes, which are mainly for the targeted altering of a substance’s properties as well as its composition. This disciple is as well as production science a part of the industrial science sector. Chemical and Process Engineering itself concentrates heavily upon material conversion.

 

Material conversion can be achieved via:

 

1. Alteration of the composition e.g. a suspension by filtrating or a solution by distilling.
2. Changing of the material’s properties e.g.: the humidity level of a Product by drying or the grain-size by comminution.
3. Alteration of the type e.g. of element or compositions by chemical reactions or nuclear transformation.

 

These operations are being chained one by one resulting in the total process.

 

Nowadays, the pressure on costs, better simulation and analysis methods as well as the better understanding upon physical correlations result in the combination of various processes in one. For a further and profound understanding of these correlation, it is vital to consider every process into different entities.

 

As a result, chemical and process engineering is still partitioned amongst the physical activities within the basic operations:

 

• mechanical (Grinding, Sieving, Filtrating, Mixing)
• thermal (Absorption, Adsorption, Drying, Extraction)
• chemical (= Reaction engineering)