Chemical Engineering : A Launch that Failed to get Momentum after Take Off !

As an engineering student I learnt chemical engineering, the modern day engineering discipline which equips a student to get familiarized with various knowledge inputs, theories and mathematical tools that are required for designing and operating various kinds of process plant systems concerned with all kinds of gases, liquids and solids and their physio-chemical conversions.

As part of the curriculum, I remember getting introduced to various topical concepts such as Fluid and Particle Mechanics, Thermodynamics, Transport Phenomena, Instrumentation, Process Control, Stoichiometry, Unit Operations, Unit Processes, etc, etc with necessary equipping inputs in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and fundamentals of established conventional engineering such as civil engineering, mechanical engineering and electrical and electronics engineering.

Those who devised this relatively new branch of engineering perhaps thought of having a better trained lot of professionals for designing and operating complex automated chemical process plants such as the oil refineries, the fertilizer plants, the petrochemical complexes, mineral processing plants, bulk industrial chemical production plants and the like with a better understanding of the multi-disciplinary skills required for such complex industrial production units of modern times.[For those interested in knowing the history and origin of chemical engineering click here or here !]

If  conventional engineering disciplines such as Civil Engineering and Mechanical Engineering   originated as what we know today as a result of the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries in UK and Europe which instigated professionalism in modern civilization, Electrical Engineering and Chemical Engineering was on account of a similar professionalism of some US academicians a century later.

Chemical Engineering being more modern got a curriculum cramped with much of the information from the former engineering disciplines and some more of its own from the Industrial Chemistry and Applied Physical Sciences.

In that way, Chemical Engineering offered the students a much broader aspects of knowledge about the modern industrial technology and was thought to equip the newly trained engineers with better inter disciplinary skills that are required to work in the complex industries of the twentieth century.

From my personal experience, I can say that those who got trained as a chemical engineer is in a better position to grasp the interdisciplinary complexities of the modern day industries where physio-chemical processes are employed for various kinds of production activities.

Stringent statutory stipulations in industrial safety and environmental issues coupled with the economics of production caused greater opportunities and challenges for chemical engineering. Higher demands of instrumentation and process control automation incorporating modern day advances of digital electronics added more complexity to this field of studies. Developments in corrosion sciences and modern materials of construction technologies enhanced the burden of diverse knowledge in chemical engineering.

As a result chemical engineering began disintegrating into more and more specialized fields. Petroleum and Petrochemical engineering, Bio-chemical Engineering, Environmental Engineering, etc came into being as a result of academic initiatives in the last few decades.

However, the enthusiastic universities that went ahead with specialized fields of studies some how appeared to care little to create equivalent awareness about such courses and their benefits in the minds of the industrial planners and decision makers.

This has caused the recruiters often forgetting to include such advancely trained candidates from their essential qualification specifications for their new recruits or to allot a lesser intakes for such candidates.

The result was lesser career opportunities for those who ventured to learn more. This resulted in vacant seats in the universities which offered advanced courses.

This in turn created a shortage of adequately trained people for the industries, the latter resorting to place conventionally trained engineers even in specialized interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary areas for which they lacked the necessary background knowledge. This resulted in poor technical management of industries causing poor industrial safety and higher Operational and Maintenance costs.

A vicious circle has been created !

Let me cite the example of India. In the days when I was a student some four decades ago, chemical engineering was one of the most sought after disciplines of engineering.

Now it is not. No new engineering colleges which came into existence in this country in the past one and a half decade period offer chemical engineering as a course of study. Chemical engineering is offered only in the elite and old institutions. Even in those, the responses from the students are lukewarm due to the collapse of career opportunities in this branch of engineering.

At the same time engineers who work in the industry, like me in senior positions, feel the shortage of adequately trained chemical engineers in the intake levels who could take up the industrial challenges.

In India, the massive exodus of fresh engineers of any discipline to non-engineering field of works should be another concern for any body who has long term thoughts on human resource planning.

I would like to get feed backs and opinions on the issue that I just highlighted from engineering academicians, students and engineers working in the industries.

Update-1 [4-12-12]

Let me thank all those who gave their comments so far.

There are two professional bodies in India which are supposed to take care of the professional development needs of the chemical engineers. These are:

1. The Institution of Engineers (India) : This body is for all engineers including ChE.

2. The Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers (IIChE) : This body is exclusively for ChE.

Though these professional bodies are doing some work in organizing professional seminars and conferences or conducting associateship examinations, their contribution in ensuring good career prospects to those who have chosen this discipline, on a broader perspective, is not so commendable. They lack the will to take up major issues with the government or the Industry. Their activities in the recent years appear to be more of a routine nature than some thing of a proactive nature.

There are some industries in India who have realized the benefits of having ChEs in their technical and general management streams. These industries usually provide a good career opportunity for the ChEs.

However, in many other industries and areas, jobs which are most suited to ChEs are professionally diluted due to the ignorance of their top management. In such industries, brilliant ChEs get entrapped in an intellectual and professional dilemma, making them soon losing their interest in professional work.

Many bright ChEs are compelled to switch over to other areas of work which has nothing to do with their background training and education.

In the 1950's handful of ChEs passed out with degrees in India from one or two engineering institutions. In 2012, this should be to the tune of about 6000 [ I do not have any correct information. This is a mere estimate. There are nearly 165 engineering institutions now having a department of ChE. Assuming that they are capable of training an average of 40 ChEs every year, then the number should be about 6600. Besides, the IIChE and the IE(I) conducts their own associateship examinations in ChE which is equivalent to a Bachelors degree such as the BSChE, BScEngg (ChE), BE or BTech (ChE). All the engineering colleges that impart training in ChE are reputed institutions who have been in existence for quite some years. The majority of Indian engineering colleges established in the private sector in the last 10-15 years do not have a ChE department.

For a country of India's population and size, this is a small number. Since ChEs are comparitively short supply, their employability is better as compared to the other disciplines now.

In this context, I find this paper  presented by Mr Sharu S Ratnekar in one of the conferences of ChEs an interesting reading.

[Chemical Engineers-Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow ] 

It would be of help to all , if you express your views and reactions.