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by Parm Bansal -
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I have been thinking a lot lately about why I became a chemical engineer. Was it for the problem-solving aspects the discipline offered? Was it because chemistry did not pay as well? Or did I see something in the way that chemical engineers can have an impact on all our lives? I did not realize it at the time, but looking back I was drawn to it as a discipline and career because of the impact I could have on the lives of the people around me. It would be interesting to hear from you, if you felt a similar pull.
Chemical engineers are making a difference in the quality of life every day for everyone. How? We work in industries that touch everyone's lives. Whether that is health, food, or energy--or whether it is helping to develop new medicines. Looking at making food processes more efficient or helping to find more sustainable, green, sources of energy. So, we are involved in all aspects of society; some even train to be accountants (but we won't dwell on that)!
Over the course of a number of issues, the IChemE publication The Chemical Engineer has been running a series of chemical engineers who have changed the world. From John McKeen, who, along with chemist Jasper Kane, scaled up the manufacture of penicillin during WWII. And Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch who developed the process (The Haber-Bosch process) that captures nitrogen from the air and converts it to ammonia. A process that is still used today, practically unchanged. To Waldo Semon who, while working with the brittle form of polyvinyl chloride, accidentally solvated PVC and plasticized it. It is now used in a wide range of applications from credit cards and window frames to electrical insulation tape.
That is in the past, so where does our future as engineers lie? Where can we make a real difference to the quality of life in the future? We need to find the next big idea. The next big industrial revolution, that will ignite manufacturing. The over reliance on service industries, like finance, has shown us to be far too vulnerable to the vagaries of market forces. We need a strong manufacturing foundation to have a stable society. I believe chemical engineers can provide that spark that will take us forward into the next industrial revolution.
Chemical engineers have, over the decades, enhanced the quality of life of everyone in society. It is for the next generation of chemical engineers to take us to the next level? Who is up for the challenge?