This book is meant as a handbook and resource guide for chemists
(and other scientists) who either find themselves working alongside
chemical engineers or who are undertaking chemical engineering-type
projects and who wish to communicate with their colleagues and
understand chemical engineering principles. The book has arisen out
of the short course, Concepts of Chemical Engineering for Chemists,
held annually at UCL since 1999 and the forerunner to the Royal
Society of Chemistry’s ‘‘4 Chemists’’ series of professional training
courses, of which it is now part. It can be used as accompanying
material for the course, or as a stand-alone reference book. The course
itself is designed to provide basic information on the main aspects of
chemical engineering in a relatively simple, but practical, manner.
Hence, while this book tries to emulate this, it also includes worked
examples, plus extensive reference lists and bibliographies in order that
the reader can research elsewhere for more detail and for aspects that are
not covered in the book.
This book aims to give chemists an insight into the world of chemical
engineering, outlining the basic concepts and explaining the terminology
of, and systems approach to, process design. It can be said that chemists
create new molecules and compounds and chemical engineers manufacture
these into useful products on a commercial scale, but, of course, the
two disciplines do not work in isolation; chemistry and chemical engineering
are intertwined. One only has to look at the history of chemical
engineering and its origins in chemistry (or, more correctly, applied
chemistry) to appreciate the close relationship between the two and their
shared foundation in molecular behaviour. The reader is referred to
Darton et al.’s collection of visionary essays on chemical engineering’s
role in society1 and the Whitesides report, ‘‘Beyond the Molecular
Frontier’’,2 which reflect on the importance of chemists and chemical
engineering working effectively together to tackle the enormous challenges
facing the world today.