This blog post looks at the background behind chemical engineering’s position as the core technology of the industrial revolution and its development into modern science and technology.

 

What is chemical engineering?

Chemical engineering is the study of designing optimal production processes and advancing technologies to manipulate and control them in order to make the production facilities of factories a little more systematic. Chemical engineering focuses not only on understanding chemical reactions, but also on developing technological systems that can implement these reactions on a large scale. This enables us to produce chemical products efficiently and economically in large-scale production facilities.

 

The origin and development of chemical engineering

The term chemical engineering was first introduced by James F. Donnelly in 1839. Later, George Edward Davis established the basic concepts of chemical engineering. This discipline truly took hold during World War I (1914-1918). Chemical engineering became an academic discipline as the demand for petroleum products and organic chemicals soared due to the development of internal combustion engines in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and other industrialized countries that led the world’s industry. In particular, chemical engineering became more important in the manufacturing process of military supplies that required large-scale production during the war, which allowed chemical engineering to develop more systematically.
World War II triggered the start of the petrochemical industry. This in turn necessitated the construction of optimal chemical processes through physical unit operations and reaction operations, and led to the birth of reaction engineering, which plays a central role in modern chemical engineering. In the 1960s, the theory of transport phenomena and the engineering of particulate matter, which deal with particulate matter, emerged to provide a common interpretation of unit operation. In the 1970s, process system engineering, such as process control systems and process design, emerged to efficiently control the process, establishing the foundation for chemical engineering to comprehensively study chemical processes.

 

Academic independence of chemical engineering

It has only been a century since chemical engineering became an independent field of engineering. The intensified competition between the chemical industries of the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century led to the active research of chemical engineering. The first chemical engineering lecture was said to have been given in 1887 in the Manchester area of the United Kingdom by a chemical engineering technician named George E. Davis, who gave 12 lectures on the processes of chemical plants in the UK at the time. The following year, in 1888, chemical engineering lectures were also given in the Department of Chemistry at MIT in the United States. However, chemical engineering was not yet an independent field of study in university courses, but rather a branch of chemistry. A few years later, with the significant contributions of Arthur A. Noyes and William H. Walker, chemical engineering was able to be treated as an independent university course. The establishment of chemical engineering education was a major factor in the development of chemical engineering.

 

Early textbooks and the establishment of societies in chemical engineering

Meanwhile, Davis of the UK, who gave the first lecture on chemical engineering, published a book on the subject in 1901, which contained the unit operation, which later became an important aspect of chemical engineering. For his contributions, Davis is credited with a great historical contribution to the naming of the new independent engineering field of chemical engineering. In the early days when chemical engineering was recognized as an independent field, it was still treated as a part of chemistry within the American Chemical Society. However, there was a debate over the need to separate chemistry and chemical engineering, with a professor of chemistry at Columbia University, Milton C. Whitaker, saying that chemists lack an engineering education and therefore cannot apply the ideas they develop. Ultimately, on June 22, 1908, about 40 people gathered at the Philadelphia Engineers Club to launch the first American Institute of Chemical Engineers. In the early days, the institute discussed how to teach chemical engineering at universities, and now it plays a central role in chemical engineering.

 

Introduction and development of chemical engineering in Korea

Chemical engineering was first officially established in Korea in October 1946 when the Department of Chemical Engineering was established at the College of Engineering at Seoul National University. At the time, education in chemical engineering (then called applied chemistry) was being conducted in small amounts under Japanese colonial rule, but the history of chemical engineering should be considered to have begun with the liberation of Korea. Chemical engineering in Korea began with the establishment of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the College of Engineering at Seoul National University during the liberation of Korea. At the time, there were an estimated 50 Korean chemists who had graduated from universities in Korea and abroad, and they were mainly teaching in Korea and Japan. Kim Dong-il, the first dean of the College of Engineering, Na Ik-young, and Ma Hyung-ok formed the initial faculty of the Department of Chemical Engineering. They laid the foundation for chemical engineering education in Korea over a period of four years from 1946 to 1949.
On the other hand, chemical engineering and applied chemistry students initially worked within the Korean Chemical Society. This is similar to the situation in the United States, where chemical engineering began within the boundaries of chemistry. However, the completion of the Chungju Fertilizer Plant, Korea’s first chemical plant, in 1959 and the construction and operation of several large-scale chemical plants in the 1960s led to a stronger rallying of chemical engineering students. Afterwards, after preparations and an inaugural meeting, about 20 chemical engineering students from all over the country gathered in a lecture room at Seoul National University’s College of Medicine on December 8, 1962, and held the inaugural meeting of the Korean Institute of Chemical Engineering to officially launch the institute.

 

The Present and Future of Chemical Engineering

Chemical engineering is now one of the major majors in the engineering colleges of major universities in Korea and abroad, and as it has firmly established itself as an independent academic field, it has expanded to include not only the traditional areas of chemical engineering, but also areas such as biotechnology and biomedicine. This expansion means that chemical engineering has developed beyond simply the convergence of chemistry and engineering, and has evolved into an academic discipline that explores new possibilities through convergence with various sciences and technologies. Chemical engineering is currently one of the most promising fields, with research being conducted on technologies such as nanotechnology and fuel cells.
In addition, as interest in sustainability grows, chemical engineering is playing an important role in the development of environmentally friendly and energy-efficient processes. For example, various studies are being actively conducted, including carbon capture technology to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and the production of environmentally friendly energy using biomass. These technologies are expected to be an important key to solving future energy problems.
In conclusion, chemical engineering has now become a discipline that encompasses a wide range of applications beyond simple manufacturing technology, and it will play an important role in the future of the entire industry. The development of chemical engineering will make an important contribution to solving various problems in our society, and we expect continuous development and innovation in the future.