Chemical Engineering vs Chemistry

Salve
Thu, 02 Aug 2012 12:22:49 +0000

When I was first entering college, I had the exact same question. I mean, chemical engineering has “chem” in it right? Surprisingly, they are vastly different majors. I am currently entering my last year as a chemical engineering degree and have certainly learned a lot along the way.

So to put it simply, chemistry deals with the small while chemical engineering deals with the large. As a chemistry major, you explore into the vast world of atoms and why they do what they do. You take classes in areas of analytical, physical, organic, and inorganic chemistry. Analytical focuses on how to make quantitative measurements of features related to molecules and atoms. Physical deals with the energy, phase equilibrium, and quantum aspects of molecules and atoms. Organic deals with the chemistry of life and how the atoms of C, H, N, O, etc interact to form those chemicals typically associated with biological processes. And lastly inorganic deals with metals and metalloids and their various properties. So as you can see from these subjects, the focus is on a very small unit. (Disclaimer: there are more classes in chemistry than just this, but most deal with instrumental techniques)

Now as for chemical engineering it is a little different, well a lot different. We focus on things in bulk. Classes you take here are material and energy balances, fluid mechanics, heat and mass transfer operations, thermodynamics, process control and design, chemical reaction engineering, numerical analysis. Material and energy balance focuses on the principle that matter and energy and matter entering a system must be the same amount of energy and matter exiting. So it’s looking at the bulk quantity of material or energy entering instead of focusing on small quantities. Fluid mechanics focuses on how fluids move through a system and helps to quantify multiple dynamic qualities of the fluid. Heat and mass transfer operations looks at how energy and mass can move from one point to another depending on qualities of the material that is moving and that is being moved through. Thermodynamics observes overall systems and quantifies energy characteristics while also looking into phase equilibria and quantifying species concentrations. Process control and design focuses on actual chemical processes and brings all of this coursework together into understanding how when you put something into a big reactor, what is happening and what are you going to get out. This is where chemical engineers really tend to focus on. Lastly there is numerical analysis which basically gives mathematical methods to analyze these processes. From these classes you can see that chemical engineers really focus on the big picture. They are much more interested in what do I need to put in to a reactor and what product will I get out. Chemists are looking at what is actually happening during that reaction process.

So there is a very simple overview of both subjects, believe me there is a lot more to them. I have taken enough extra chemistry classes to basically also have a chemistry degree. I would suggest to read wikipedia on both chemistry and chemical engineering if you want a very basic overview of them. What I have given you is basically what you will focus on in the major. Hopefully this can help you a little bit in your decision.