Summary of Engineering Research

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Chemical Engineering
C. F. Zukoski, Head
114 Roger Adams Laboratory, 600 S. Mathews Ave., MC-712, Urbana, IL 61801-3792
217-333-3640 • http://www.scs.uiuc.edu/chem_eng

Research in the Department of Chemical Engineering focuses on engineering science research activities built on principles of physics, mathematics, chemistry, and transport phenomena to advance process technologies in the chemical, petroleum, semiconduction, pharmaceutical, biochemical, fiber, personal care, and food industries. The scientific approach taken by the department provides these industries with a foundation on which to build their technologies. The department sustains research programs in fluid mechanics, reactor engineering, catalysis, corrosion, polymer processing, interfacial phenomena, control, and optimization. In addition, the department is developing strengths in silicon wafer fabrication and protein, cell and tissue engineering, and drug delivery. The department's activities sustain a leadership position to maintaining and advancing our standard of living.

The department has a strong tradition of fundamental research. A strong base of corporate and federal research funding sustains this effort. While single investigator grants remain the backbone of the research support, faculty members participate in a wide range of multidisciplinary research programs across campus at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory, Center for Advanced Cement-Based Materials, Computational Science and Engineering Program, and National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). These activities provide faculty with significant leverage in building multidisciplinary programs.

Research in the department is carried out through the collaboration of faculty members, graduate students, undergraduate students, and post-doctoral fellows. Admission to graduate study is an extremely selective process and students are encouraged to initiate their research programs early in their graduate careers. As part of their Ph.D. programs, many students participate in internships in corporate research laboratories through the department's Corporate Partnership Program. The interdisciplinary and collaborative research environment in which the students find themselves creates an intellectual vitality and excitement in the department conducive to groundbreaking research advances.

The Department of Chemical Engineering is part of the Engineering Experiment Station and is in the School of Chemical Sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Special research facilities available to the department include those in centers across campus as well as extensive shop facilities, including machine, glass, and electronic shops; modern spectroscopy laboratories for NMR, EPR, and mass spectroscopy; and a microanalytical laboratory.