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Chemical Engineering
College of Engineering
Goodwin Hall at the corner of Prices Fork Road and Stanger Street is the new flagship building for the College of Engineering. It houses 40 instructional and research labs, eight classrooms, an auditorium, and 150 offices for several engineering departments. More than classrooms, offices, and laboratories for Virginia Tech, the building is a ground-breaking experiment to measure even the smallest vibrations made inside the building. Accelerometers can measure vibration from wind loads, structural settling, or even foot traffic.
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245 Goodwin Hall, 635 Prices Fork Road, Chemical Engineering Department (0211) Blacksburg VA 24061
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Department Head : Steven Wrenn
Graduate Program Director : Chang Lu (Graduate Program Director)
Emeriti Faculty:
Donald Baird;
David Cox
Professors:
Luke Achenie;
Richey Davis;
William Ducker;
Erdogan Kiran;
Yih-An Liu;
Chang Lu;
Padmavathy Rajagopalan;
Steven Wrenn
Associate Professors:
Michael Bortner;
Aaron Goldstein;
Ayman Karim;
Sheima Khatib;
Stephen Martin;
Abby Whittington;
Hongliang Xin
Assistant Professors:
Sanket Deshmukh;
Rong Tong
Frank C. Vilbrandt Professor:
Yih-An Liu
Robert E. Hord, Jr. Professor:
Padmavathy Rajagopalan
Fred W. Bull Professor:
Chang Lu
Chemical Engineering Introduction
Overview of ChE Graduate Program
Chemical engineering has and will continue to play a prominent role in all realistic solutions to national and international problems of energy and the environment, health and medicine, and food and water. Progress toward solutions in these areas rests with judicious application of science. Such is the domain of the chemical engineer.
The graduate plans of study in chemical engineering are heavily oriented toward synthesis with an emphasis on analysis. There is a strong thread of physics, chemistry, mathematics, biochemistry, and microbiology in much of the research in the department. Current thrust research areas include: data analytics (artificial intelligence and machine learning in the chemical engineering domain); sustainable and green energy (catalysis and surface science); health and medicine (biochemical and tissue engineering, biomaterials, nano- and precision-medicine). Traditional areas also remain active and in some cases overlap with the thrust areas: polymer chemistry and polymer science and engineering; colloid and surface chemistry; solid state chemistry and physics; nanotechnology; applied thermodynamics, molecular modeling; computer-aided design; and supercritical fluid science and technology. This representative list of topics gives an indication of the breadth and diversity of research areas in the department.
Programs are also available for students with undergraduate degrees other than chemical engineering. Chemistry majors, especially those with thorough backgrounds in physical chemistry and mathematics, as well as graduates in biochemistry and microbiology, can re-orient their studies. The applied science nature of the research in the department facilitates this reorientation process for such students. Ph.D. programs to meet the needs of these students generally may require additional courses.
The Ph.D. and M.S. degrees include a core of 12 credits in transport phenomena, thermodynamics, kinetics and mathematics. These courses are supplemented with electives chosen in support of the thesis research or the student's special interests. The Ph.D. is awarded only to those students who demonstrate the initiative and ability to carry through a significant research program, resulting in a thesis. A thesis is required of all M.S. degree students.
Much of the research in the department involves multidisciplinary efforts; as such, chemical engineering students develop strong interactions with students and faculty in and out of the department and across colleges.
Faculty Members
The department has been growing rapidly in recent years and prides itself in a very diverse faculty.
Offered In (Blacksburg)
Degree Requirements
Minimum GPA: 3.0
Institution code: 5859
MEng (Project & Report) - Total of 30 credit hours.
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minimum of 24 graded credit hours
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maximum of 6 credit hours of Project & Report (5904)
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may include maximum of 6 credits of 4000-level undergraduate course work
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all other graded course work must be 5000-level or higher and may include: 3 credits of seminar and a maximum of 9 credits total in 5974, 5984 and 6984
MEng (non-thesis) - Total of 30 credit hours*
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minimum of 30 graded credit hours
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may include a maximum of 6 credits of 4000-level undergraduate course work
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all other graded course work must be 5000-level or higher and may include: 3 credits of seminar and a maximum of 9 credits total in 5974, 5984 and 6984
*The MEng (non-thesis) degree is usually reserved for PhD students wishing to earn a MEng degree on the way to their PhD degree.
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Offered In (Blacksburg)
Degree Requirements
Minimum GPA: 3.0
Institution code: 5859
PhD - Total of 90 credit hours.
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minimum of 27 graded credit hours
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may include a maximum of 6 credits of 4000-level undergraduate course work
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all other graded course work must be 5000-level or higher and may include: 4 credits of seminar and a maximum of 18 credits total in 5974, 5984 and 6984
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minimum of 30 credit hours of Research & Dissertation (7994)
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Offered In (Blacksburg)
Degree Requirements
Minimum GPA: 3.0
Institution code: 5859
MS (thesis) - Total of 30 credit hours.
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minimum of 20 graded credit hours
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may include a maximum of 6 credits of 4000-level undergraduate course work
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all other graded course work must be 5000-level or higher and may include: 3 credits of seminar and a maximum of 6 credits total in 5974, 5984 and 6984
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minimum of 6 credit hours of Research & Thesis (5994)
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Chemical Engineering Facilities Introduction
The Chemical Engineering Department has state-of-the-art experimental facilities for the chemical, physical and biological characterization of materials. Computational resources include a departmental cluster and campus-wide supercomputing facilities.
Bio-Nanomaterials Lab
Faculty: Prof. Richey Davis
Research in this lab concerns the self-assembly of polymers at interfaces and the engineering of nanostructured particles for drug delivery and medical imaging applications. A major focus is on the formation and characterization of nanoparticles with well-defined size distributions and compositions. The therapeutic payloads contained in the nanoparticles include small molecule drugs, peptides, and DNA. Imaging agents contained in the nanoparticles are used for characterizing biodistribution and consist of fluorophores for optical imaging and superparamagnetic iron oxide particles for MRI. The lab is equipped with instrumentation to characterize the size distributions, surface chemistry, compositions, and related properties of nanoparticles.
Biomaterial and Medical Device Laboratory (424 Holden Hall)
Faculty: Prof. Abby R. Whittington
This laboratory focuses on design, fabrication and characterization of biodegradable or biologically relevant polymeric materials and their composites for use in medical devices, drug delivery systems, and tissue engineering. The facilities offer support for polymer and composite processing into nano/microparticles, films, hydrogels, and filaments with or without chemical modification. We seek to understand how material properties drive biological response through monitoring degradation rates, release kinetics, biocompatibility, changes in mechanical properties, and tissue formation.
Catalysis and In Situ/Operando Characterization Lab
Faculty: Prof. Ayman Karim
Our research is multidisciplinary in the areas of nanomaterials synthesis, in situ/operando characterization, and heterogeneous catalysis. The work is focused on designing catalysts with molecularly tailored properties for shale gas utilization and automotive exhaust emission applications. The work involves detailed studies of the catalyst synthesis, in-situ/operando characterization of the structure under different conditions and during reaction and detailed measurements of the reaction kinetics to develop structure-reactivity correlations. The use of advanced in situ/operando characterization tools is the cornerstone of the research program including, spectroscopy (X-ray absorption and infrared), small angle X-ray scattering, microcalorimetry, transmission electron microscopy and others. Our ultimate goal is to determine how to tailor the catalyst's geometric and electronic properties to actively and selectively promote specific desired reaction pathways.
Colloidal and Surface Engineering Laboratory
Faculty: Prof. William Ducker
This lab is focused on measuring the physical properties of colloidal particles and surface in liquids. State-of-the-art instruments are available for measuring rheology, zeta potential, particle size distribution, streaming potential, surface imaging (AFM, and fluorescence microscopy), adsorption (QCM, ATR-IR), and for handling bacterial suspensions. A major focus of the lab is understanding bacterial adsorption. The lab has facilities for BSL2 biosafety, and includes a biosafety cabinet and incubators.
Computational Catalysis Lab
Faculty: Prof. Hongliang Xin
This lab focuses on understanding structure-function relationships of nanoscale materials for energy applications with a multi-scale modeling framework that integrates our expertise in ab-initio calculations, kinetic simulations, and statistical learning.
Computational Materials Design Lab
Faculty: Prof. Sanket Deshmukh
Our research group is interested in creating new materials and biomaterials promising for use in a number of technologically important areas, such as energy, biomedicine, and tribology. By coupling statistical mechanical theory and newly developed multi-scale computational models in the group, we improve the fundamental understanding of the structure-property relationships in the existing materials with the assistance from supercomputers. A deeper understanding of the atomic-level structure and dynamics of the existing materials and proximal solvent molecules empower us to design new hybrid materials with predefined structure and function that can be used in next generation devices.
Drug Delivery and Biomaterials Lab
Faculty: Prof. Rong Tong
Our work is at the interface of chemistry, materials science, nanotechnology and biotechnology, with interests in the following areas: (1) polymers and materials chemistry, in particular biodegradable polyester; (2) polymer biomaterials, in particular polymeric nanoparticles for drug delivery; (3) controlled release delivery system, including on-demand drug delivery for cancer therapy.
Lab for Center of Excellence in Process System Engineering
Faculty: Prof. Y. A. Liu
A computational lab supported by sponsors of our graduate research and industrial outreach in process system engineering, such as Aspen Technology, Inc., SINOPEC and PetroChina. Current research focus on energy-saving design, validation and applications of CO2 capture and acid gas cleaning processes, adsorptive and chromatographic separations, polymer process modeling, monitoring, and advanced process control, big data analytics and machine learning in bioprocessing and chemical engineering.
Laboratory for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering
Faculty: Prof. Padma Rajagopalan
Research focuses on the development of model tissue constructs or functional tissue units and the study of cell-substratum interactions. A primary goal is to design tissue constructs that mimic the native structure of tissues in vivo and to systematically probe cellular response to a variety of cues. This involves the fabrication of biocompatible scaffolds and templates, and more importantly tailoring surface and bulk properties. Another research interest is to quantify cell-substratum interactions. Specifically studies focus on how chemical and mechanical properties of an underlying substratum affect cellular motility and contractility.
Membranes and Nanostructured Materials Laboratory
Faculty: Prof. Stephen Martin
Research focuses on the synthesis, characterization and applications of soft and nanostructured materials, particularly those with applications for membrane separations and gas adsorption. A particular focus on the relationships between structure in materials, materials processing, and control of material properties for applications including water desalination, gas separations, and carbon capture. Specialized instrumentation in the lab includes equipment for X-ray Scattering (WAXD), optical microscopy, spin coating, contact angle goniometry, liquid chromatography, gas chromatography, isothermal adsorption gravimetry, gas and liquid permeation (single gas, mixed gas, membrane chromatography, and reverse osmosis) and packed bed gas adsorption.
Microfluidics Lab
Faculty: Prof. Chang Lu
Development of microfluidic devices for studying cells and biomolecules.Research also focuses on understanding microscale fluid mechanics.
Multiscale and Multiphysics Modeling Lab
Faculty: Prof. Luke Achenie
This facility specializes in molecular to macro-scale modeling, data science and scientific computing. We use modeling techniques such as molecular dynamics, quantum mechanics, machine learning, agent-based modeling and differential equations (ordinary, partial and integral). There are applications to membranes, surfactants, oral drug delivery, chemical/reactive processes and biomedical problems of current interest. The facility has a medium size Beowulf style high performance computing environment.
Polymer and Composites Materials Laboratory
Faculty: Prof. Michael Bortner
The PCML focuses on polymer composite processing and resulting morphology and structure property relationships, spanning macro to nano-scale polymer composites. Core research areas include advanced manufacturing approaches for rapid fabrication of carbon fiber based composites, process modeling and materials development for polymer based additive manufacturing, development of novel nanoscale interfacial/interphase characterization analyses in thermosetting polymer nanocomposites, and processing/applications of cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs). Specialized equipment includes high temperature (bed/melt)), multi-material extrusion custom additive manufacturing machines; modulated DSC; DMA; capillary and microcapillary rheometers; FTIR + MCT, ATR; laboratory scale extrusion, ultra high T (2200°C) vacuum furnace, Instron loadframe (500N-50kN, various geometries), high energy ball milling, Zeiss stereoscope (motorized stage and ZEN z-stacking hardware/software).
Skeletal Tissue Engineering and Mechanobiology Lab
Faculty: Prof. Aaron Goldstein
Research concerns the fabrication of biocompatible polymer scaffolds for the regeneration of bone, muscle, tendon and ligament tissues. Our goal is to fabricate materials that can provide chemical, biochemical, mechanical, and topographic cues to guide stem cells to migrate, proliferate, and differentiate into various skeletal tissues. In addition, we are interested in constructing composite and spatially graded materials that could lead to the regeneration of heterogeneous tissues such as the bone-to-ligament transition. Finally, we are interested in understanding how mechanical stimuli (e.g., tensile strain, hydrodynamic shear) act in concert with biomaterial scaffolds to affect expression of skeletal tissue phenotypes and deposition of bioactive extracellular matrix proteins.
Supercritical Fluids and High Pressure Lab
Faculty: Prof. Erdogan Kiran
This is a highly specialized laboratory for investigations of thermophysical properties of dense or supercritical fluids and fluid mixtures at high pressures, up to 1000 bar at 200oC. The focus is on thermodynamic and kinetic aspects of miscibility and phase separation and transport properties of dense fluid mixtures with emphasis on applications for polymer formation, modification and processing. Polymer miscibility and phase equilibria, polymer crystallization, and morphological modifications, polymer foaming and generation of micro or nanoporous materials in supercritical fluid mixtures, and assessment of high pressure viscosity of polymer solutions and lubricants are among the active research areas.
Sustainable Catalysis and Reaction Engineering
Faculty: Prof Sheima Khatib
The Khatib Lab performs
research, focusing on diverse aspects of heterogeneous catalysis. Our
research includes nano and molecular catalyst synthesis, structural
characterization, and kinetic testing, as well as catalytic reactor
engineering, applied to chemically sustainable catalytic processes with
industrial and energy applications. This includes the following topics:
- Natural gas conversion into useful chemicals.
- Dehydroaromatization reactions, production of cyclic
organic compounds (benzene).
- Design of catalysts composed of oxides, metals, and
carbides supported on porous materials.
- Production of COx-free hydrogen from methane.
- CO2 upgrading.
- Catalyst stability, strategies for regeneration, and
deactivation pathways.
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Course Listing for Chemical Engineering
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