Hi. I'm a senior in high school and I am most likely to go into the engineering field of chemistry. I wanted to know all the different jobs or objectives a chemical engineer would do during his or her work hours.
2007-02-19 16:08:33 · 2 answers · asked by dan 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Engineering
Chemical engineers can fill a vast number of roles in a vast number of fields. "Traditional" chemical engineers design, implement, modify, and maintain the hardware systems necessary to carry out a specific chemical reaction at maximum efficiency. Basically the chemists figure out how to make something chemically. It's then the chemical engineer's job to scale that up and make bulk production possible and affordable. I myself am a research chemical engineer. My job entails designing and testing micro chemical and thermal systems for the DOE. Currently I am working on a project where I take a fuel such as propane and react it catalytically to produce hydrogen and single carbon products. We then separate out the hydrogen and send it to a fuel cell, which produces electricity. My graduate work was using magnetic resonace microscopy (like an MRI) to do material science studies of fuel cell materials. I did an internship at a company making solar energy cells, where I standardized an acid etch process to make it safer, more reliable, and cheaper. So as you can see, there are a bunch of different ways chemical engineering can be employed. But what it all comes down to is making chemical processes and products cheaper and better.
2007-02-20 08:03:10 · answer #1 · answered by Bigsky_52 6 · 3⤊ 0⤋
There are multiple positions a Chemical Engineer can take on.
ChemE's are taught the physics of chemicals as well as organic material. Basically, they learn about the properties of a chemical and how it reacts in various reactors. ChemE's learn what machinery is necessary to build manufacturing plants. They can have multiple roles in a variety of fields. I have listed roles as well as fields below.
1) process engineer
2) research & development
3) plastics
4) food
5) pharmaceuticals
6) makeup
7) consumer products (health & beauty, laundry detergents, diapers, etc)
It's a diverse field with many options. Some ChemE's go into sales or marketing as well as process and research.
Hope that helps
2007-02-19 17:00:58 · answer #2 · answered by Amber Eyes 4 · 2⤊ 0⤋
They take everything known to chemistry and apply it all to make Chemicals to do things.
2007-02-19 16:19:23 · answer #3 · answered by eric l 6 · 0⤊ 5⤋