| Chemical Engineering
Chair
Jonathan S. Dordick
Associate Chair Michael M. Abbott
Director, Industrial Liaison Program E. Bruce Nauman
Department Home Page http://www.eng.rpi.edu/dept/chem-eng/
T chemical conversion of resources into new, more useful forms has been the traditional concern of chemical engineers. In recent years, a critical concern with the depletion of resources has developed, leading to increased efforts to conserve, recycle, and find alternatives. Concurrently, with high-technology advances in biochemical and semiconductor processing, these developments pose challenges that fall on the chemical engineering profession.
A major educational objective in the Howard P. Isermann Department of Chemical Engineering is to prepare students to enter their engineering practice dealing with chemical as well as physical processes to meet the challenges of the future. The chemical engineering curriculum, which builds on chemistry, mathematics, basic sciences, and engineering science, culminates in professional applications in which theory is tempered by engineering art and economic principles. Through this curriculum, graduates are prepared equally well for professional practice or for advanced study.
Opportunities for creative and satisfying practice in chemical engineering can be found in conception, design, control, or management of processes involving chemical change. These processes range from the more conventional conversion of crude oil into petrochemicals and plastics, to the microbiological transformation of hardwood chips into specialty alcohols, or to the creation of semiconductor devices from silicon wafers. Diverse career choices exist not only in the chemical industry, but in virtually all processing industries, including agricultural, biochemical, chemical, food, nuclear, semiconductor processing, and environmental operations. By avoiding specialization and emphasizing basic principles, the program prepares its graduates for positions spanning the spectrum of activities from research and development, to process and project engineering, to production, or to technical marketing.
Research and Innovation Initiatives
Fluid Mechanics
Projects in this area involve the mechanics of fluidized beds, spouted beds, bubbles, low Reynolds number hydrodynamics, kinetic theory, two-phase flow, and surfactant behavior in organic-aqueous systems.
Heat Transfer
Topics of interest include free convection stability, forced convection (particularly in laminar flow systems), fluid-to-particle heat transfer in fluidized and spouted beds, and boiling. Studies on heat and mass transfer at interfaces are also under way.
Mass Transport
Research is in progress on simultaneous heat and mass transfer in porous media; the effects of interfacial phenomena on mass transfer; diffusion and mixing in laminar flow systems; transient dispersion processes in capillaries, porous media and open channels; and crystal growth phenomena.
Thermodynamics
Activities include molecular simulation, the analysis and correlation of phase-equilibrium data, the development and evaluation of fluid-phase equations of state, and the study of topics in solution thermodynamics.
Air Resources
Research activities include field and modeling investigations directed toward the understanding of the acid rain phenomenon, fundamental studies of the experimental and theoretical adsorption with chemical reaction of trace gases into moving drops, and improved understanding of liquid phase reaction mechanisms. The development of improved incineration of hazardous wastes requires basic understanding of the time-temperature history of combustion gases. Experimental investigations into the combustion of simulated chlorinated wastes are also in progress.
Interfacial Phenomena
Problems under investigation include interfacial resistance to mass transfer and the interaction between surface forces and interfacial convection. Work in the interfacial area is concerned with heat, mass, and momentum transfer in multicomponent, ultrathin, liquid films. Research includes studies on condensation and evaporation in the contact line region, distillation from ultrathin films, lubrication, surface-tension-driven instabilities in atomically clean liquid metals, pattern formation in dendritic growth, protein-solid interaction, and the design of biocompatible surfaces.
Biochemical and Biomedical Engineering
Research projects in biochemical engineering emphasize biocatalysis, bioseparations, and metabolic engineering. Fundamental and applied aspects of enzyme technology, mammalian cell culture, membrane sorption and separation, displacement chromatography, and salt-induced precipitation are important areas of focus. New designs involving aqueous and nonaqueous enzyme technology are being developed, as are new types of membrane-entrapped-enzyme and animal-cell-suspension reactors, which are being built, tested, and analyzed. Metabolic engineering processes are being used to develop high-rate bacterial fermentations and overproducing hybridoma cultures for producing chemical intermediates and monoclonal antibodies, respectively. Control theory of biological processes and an optical biosensor for metal detection are also being pursued. Projects in biomedical engineering involve the design of polymeric inhibitors of bacterial toxins and viruses, and the use of microfabrication tools to modulate the interaction of mammalian cells with their environment for applications in tissue engineering.
Separation Processes
The fundamentals of separating species, especially in dilute solutions, is the focus of ongoing experimental and theoretical research. Projects include the understanding of separation by membranes and the development of new membranes, adsorption and chromatographic separations for preparing laboratory quantities of unusual chemicals, and protein precipitation processes. Another major research program is the recycling of microelectronic etching solutions using membrane separation processes.
Molecular Simulations
Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics simulations are being used in combination with statistical mechanical theories to understand thermodynamics, structure, and kinetics of biomolecules in aqueous solutions. Special emphasis is placed on understanding and relating water structure near different solutes and in different environments to resulting interactions (e.g., hydrophilic and hydrophobic interactions). Molecular simulation techniques are also being applied to polymeric systems to understand penetrant solubility and diffusivity in polymers.
Polymers
A large polymer research program focuses on polymer reaction engineering including devolatilization and heat transfer. Current work emphasizes bulk polymerizations in tubular reactors and segregation phenomena in stirred tank reactors. Under study are ways of enhancing heat transfer to fluids in laminar flow and the application of polymer devolatilization technology to unconventional substances. The recovery of commingled scrap plastics by selective dissolution is a major activity. Other active areas include structure-property relationships, rheology, extrusion, and a large interdisciplinary program on biocatalysis in polymer synthesis and modification.
High-Temperature Kinetics
The development of more efficient, less polluting, combustion systems, requires accurate chemical kinetic input data on individual reactions over large temperature ranges. Rensselaer is pioneering the development of experimental techniques for obtaining such data. This work includes design, construction, experimentation, and the generation of data for use by reaction system modelers. Both fast-flow thermal and pseudostatic photochemical systems are used. Various light sources, such as lasers, combined with electro-optical detection techniques are employed to determine the time history of reactants. Larger reactants and products are observed mass spectrometrically. Microcomputers are used for experimental control and data handling. In some work, the light-emitting and electrical-charge generation aspects of reactions are also investigated. In addition to combustion, this work is important to technological fields, such as semiconductor processing, metals refining, and optical fiber and carbon black manufacturing, as well as models of the atmosphere. A better understanding of the temperature dependence of reaction rate coefficients is a significant result of this work.
Advanced Materials
Research interests are centered on developing and understanding the phenomena involved in producing advanced materials for the optical, electronic, and allied industries. Thermodynamic, transport, and chemical processes governing the formation and subsequent behavior of these materials are under active investigation. Research areas include modeling and optimizing CVD-reactor-system designs for producing high-efficiency, epitaxial layers economically in an environmetally sound manner, and developing nonlinear and electro-optic inorganic and organic materials for switching and memory applications. Additional research areas are understanding phenomena involved in the production and use of microlens arrays, wave-guide lasers, and determining the composition, property, and structure relationships of crystalline and glassy materials.
Process Control and Design
A major focus of this research is the development of realistic, robust control strategies for multivariable chemical processes having parameter and processing uncertainties. Such strategies are created to exploit the dynamic properties inherent in the systems. Integration of the modeling, design, and control of semiconductor manufacturing processes is of particular interest.
Interdepartmental Research
Several research areas involve participation and cooperation with other departments. Such areas include polymer studies with the Materials Science and Engineering and Chemistry Departments, fermentation and other biochemical research with the Biology Department, studies in fluid mechanics with the Mathematics Department, polymer membrane fabrication with the Chemistry Department, and research on lubrication and other interfacial phenomena with the Mechanical Engineering Department. Research into state-of-the-art design and optimization of CVD reactors for semiconductor production is conducted jointly with the Center for Integrated Electronics. Additional information on research in these areas is found in the catalog sections for those departments.
Research Related Facilities
The department maintains extensive research and instructional laboratories which house myriad special and unique equipment developed for specific studies, as well as extensive analytical and optical instrumentation, minicomputers, and microcomputers. Major instrumentation such as a GC/mass spectrometer, an X-ray fluorescence analyzer, an ion chromatograph, HPLC systems, and a laser zee particle characterization system make Rensselaer’s laboratories one of the most comprehensively equipped university centers for research in the areas described above. The Howard Isermann Biochemical Engineering Laboratory was established in the department exclusively for conducting biochemical engineering research. The department research programs also use a number of major university facilities including the electron optics laboratory and the polymer laboratories in the Materials Research Center.
Faculty
Departmental faculty listings are accurate as of the date generated for inclusion in this catalog. For the most up-to-date listing of faculty positions, including end-of-year promotions, please refer to the Faculty Roster section of this catalog, which is current as of the May 2002 Board of Trustees meeting.
Professors
Abbott, M.M.—Ph.D. (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute); thermodynamics.
Altwicker, E.R.—Ph.D. (Ohio State University); air pollution control, atmospheric chemistry; (emeritus).
Belfort, G.—Ph.D. (University of California, Irvine); membrane sorption and separations engineering, biocatalysis, biosensors, magnetic resonance flow imaging.
Bequette, B.W.—Ph.D. (University of Texas, Austin); chemical process modeling, control, and optimization; electronic materials processing.
Bizios, R.—Ph.D. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology); cellular bioengineering, cell/biomaterial interactions, biomaterials.
Bungay, H.R., III,—P.E., Ph.D. (Syracuse University); water resources, biochemical engineering; (emeritus).
Cale, T.S.—Ph.D. (University of Houston); microelectronic materials processing and simulation.
Chung, C.I.—Ph.D. (Rutgers University); polymer processing, polymer melt rheology, relaxation behavior in polymer solids; (emeritus).
Cramer, S.M.—Ph.D. (Yale University); biochemical engineering, chromatographic separations.
Dordick, J.S.—Ph.D. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology); biochemical engineering, enzyme technology, polymer chemistry, bioseparations.
Glicksman, M.E.—Ph.D. (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute); transport phenomena of crystal growth.
Lahey, R.T., Jr.—Ph.D. (Stanford University); two-phase flow and boiling heat transfer.
Littman, H.—Ph.D. (Yale University); fluidization, fluid-particle systems; (emeritus).
Nauman, E.B.—Ph.D. (University of Leeds, England); reaction engineering, dispersion theory, laminar heat transfer.
Van Ness, H.C.—P.E., D.Eng. (Yale University); thermodynamics; (emeritus).
Associate Professors
Muckenfuss, C.—Ph.D. (University of Wisconsin); kinetic theory, transport phenomena; (emeritus).
Plawsky, J.L.—Sc.D. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology); optical, nonlinear and electrooptic, crystalline, and glassy materials.
Assistant Professors
Garde, S.S.—Ph.D. (University of Delaware); molecular simulation.
Kane, R.S.—Ph.D. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology); biomedical engineering, polymers, surfaces, nanomaterials.
Sharfstein, S.T. —Ph.D. (University of California, Berkeley); biochemical engineering, mammalian cell culture.
Distinguished Research Professors
Fontijn, A.—D.Sc. (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands); combustion, high-temperature kinetics, gas phase reactions, atmospheric chemistry.
Gill, W.N.—P.E. Ph.D. (Syracuse University); transient dispersion processes, reverse osmosis systems, crystal growth phenomena, surface-tension-driven flow.
Wayner, P.C., Jr.—Ph.D. (Northwestern University); heat transfer, interfacial phenomena.
Adjunct Faculty
Belfort, M.—Ph.D. (University of California, Irvine); molecular biology.
Bradley, W.D. —B.S.Ch.E. (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute); process design.
Holland, J.A.—M.D. (State University of New York Health Science Center, Brooklyn); tissue engineering, cell biology.
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