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The Department of Chemical Engineering at Penn State is one of the finest Chemical Engineering programs in the country. The Department was recently ranked first in the U.S. in the production of B.S. Chemical Engineering graduates, and several major corporations (e.g., Dow, Genentech, Merck, Shell, etc) have identified Penn State's Chemical Engineering program as one of their priority targets for new hires and professional interactions.
The Department received a $2 million gift from the Dow Chemical Company in 2006 to strengthen the ties between Dow and the Chemical Engineering program at Penn State; this is the largest corporate endowment ever received at Penn State.
A 2004 NSF survey ranked Penn State 2nd in the U.S. for federal research dollars in chemical engineering. The Department is pursuing a wide range of exciting new educational initiatives, including support from the Dreyfus Foundation for a novel Hands-On Product Design Experience in Chemical Engineering.
The student-run Biodiesel Project provides a unique educational experience for Chemical Engineering undergraduates at Penn State while also providing opportunities for converting waste cooking oils into a liquid fuel for use at the Penn State agricultural facilities.
Department faculty are involved in a wide range of research activities including:
- Bioprocessing and biomolecular engineering
- Nanotechnology, including nanoparticles, nanowires, and nanoreactors
- Kinetics, catalysis, and reaction engineering
- Fluid flow, mass transfer, and tribology
- Computational chemical engineering / molecular simulations
- Alternative energy, biofuels, and photovoltaics
- Process control and optimization
- Advanced materials, colloids, and polymers
Much of the bio-medical research is affiliated with the Hershey Medical School, while the bio-process engineering group possesses its own $5MM laboratory and pilot plant facility within Fenske. The Department has strong collaborations with faculty in the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, the Materials Research Institute, and the Penn State Institutes for Energy and the Environment.
Reiveiwed on 05/23/13, Top of page