Chemical Engineering for non-chemical engineers

Define and illustrate the chemical process, from raw materials and storage through heating, mixing, reacting, distillation, and separation, using heat exchangers, pumps, and reactors.

Explore batch and continuous processes and how reactors transition from unsteady to steady state as temperature and composition stabilize. Understand how continuous operation contrasts with batch steps in practice.

Represent a chemical process using block diagrams, process flow diagrams, and piping and instrumentation diagrams, identifying streams and major equipment with standard symbols for pumps, valves, heat exchangers, and vessels.

Discover how physical quantities use units in two main systems—the metric (SI) system and the American engineering system—and why the SI standard was introduced in 1960 to standardize measurements.

Explore essential process variables, including molecules and molecular weight, density, mass and volumetric flow rates, mixture concentration, and pressure, with water as a practical example.

Apply the conservation of mass to total material balance, equating mass inflows and outflows. Explore component material balance with varying compositions, using mass flow, density, and volume in oil-tank examples.

Explore the basics of fluid flow, including what fluids are, types of fluids (solids, liquids, gases), and how pressure governs flow, with an emphasis on pumps and fluid flow equipment.

Explore how pressure arises from molecules colliding with boundaries in gases and liquids, and distinguish absolute, atmospheric, and gauge pressure with practical unit concepts.

Explore the types of fluids, including compressible and incompressible flows, and how continuity, velocity gradients, and Bernoulli describe laminar and turbulent flow in pipelines.

Describe flow transfer equipment, focusing on pumps (centrifugal and positive displacement), energy transfer from motor or turbine to impeller, and the role of net positive suction head in preventing cavitation.

Explore the definition of heat transfer and how thermal energy flows from hotter to cooler bodies, guided by temperature differences and the main transfer types.

Outline conduction, convection, and radiation, detailing conduction via thermal conductivity, area, temperature difference, and resistance, and show convection with natural or forced flow and radiation requiring no medium.

Explore heat exchangers' role in transferring heat between fluids through same-direction, counter-flow, and cross-flow configurations, and how shell-and-tube, double-pipe, and finned designs boost surface area.