Teaching Chemical Engineering to Non-Chemical Engineers

Non-chemical engineers, including other engineering disciplines and operating technicians and maintenance personnel need to work with degreed chemical engineers throughout the chemical industry. Frequently they have no background or understanding in some of the basic concepts of chemical engineering, including reactive chemicals concepts, thermodynamics, material and energy balances, heat and mass transfer, process control, solids handling fundamentals, and specialized unit operations such as chromatography and liquid-liquid extraction.

For over 20 years, AIChE has offered a 3 day public and on site courses entitled “Chemical Engineering for Non-Engineers”. After code required courses, it is the most popular course offered by AIChE. This course has been attended by EPA lawyers, engineering managers without a chemical engineering background, chemists, patent attorneys, operating technicians, sales personnel, and other types of engineers. This presentation will review the evolution of this course, its materials, the manner of teaching, and learnings from the classes over the years.