What do chemical engineers do?

viciouspoultry
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 17:58:10 +0000

Well the standard ChemE job would be a plant operations/technical services. You typically work in some sort of chemical plant (think refinery, pharmaceutical plant, ect.) and monitor the process as well as analyze your units to make sure they are running cost-effectively and safely. Typically you also change process conditions to meet the current economic climate.

I had experience working in a refinery and I had several projects where I analyzed a common separation process and determined to increase their output by creating a process model. Then I calculated the economic impact of doing so and made proposals and all that stuff. However, the job also had me do some not so glamorous work. There is repetitive things within Chemical Engineering jobs but sometimes there are opportunities to analyze the process and improve it. However, you will find that with almost any job in Engineering.