Chemical & Process Engineering | Chemical Science & Engineering

Learn to understand, develop and improve chemical processes in order to convert raw materials into products that benefit our society.

Process technology is a long-standing discipline in industries worldwide, with a great deal of established chemical processes in all kinds of sectors. How do you improve and adjust these processes to meet society’s needs for a more sustainable industry? For example, can you reuse CO₂as a raw material to make a fuel? Can you turn waste plastics into new plastics, instead of using them as fuels? And can you turn road-verge grass into biofuels for the industry? These are some typical challenges you will learn to tackle in the specialisation in Chemical & Process Engineering. You will gain expertise in the development and design of processes that deliver optimum performance in terms of technology, economy, environment and societal needs.

What to expect?

In this specialisation, you will learn to integrate knowledge of different fields such as thermodynamics, transport phenomena, catalysis, chemical reactor engineering, separation technology and plant and process design and simulation. Working on real-life cases stemming from the industry, you will examine a range of research themes in the field of bio-refinery, CO₂ removal and conversion, hydrogen production, waste stream treatment and upgrading to products, (new) processes based on sustainable raw materials and process improvement. For this, it is necessary to develop new catalysts, new multiphase and other novel reactors, (reactive) separation processes, and design and simulate these processes.

Examples of courses you will follow during this specialisation:

During the course Process Plant Design, you will design, simulate and evaluate a chemical process from scratch. Together with a team of students, you will work on a challenge presented by a company, like Bayer, Dow, Shell or Worley.
The course Advanced Molecular Separations familiarises you with advanced industrial separation techniques, including those applied in the energy, bulk chemical, fine chemical and pharmaceutical industries.
How do you control process behaviour and make sure that input changes do not jeopardise the process and its products? The course Process Dynamics & Control teaches you how.

As a student, you will delve deeper into advanced chemical concepts such as membrane technology, process intensification, soft-matter, advanced catalysis and photocatalysis, electrochemistry and chemical separations. But besides chemistry, this specialisation involves a lot of mathematics and physics, too. As a chemical process engineer, you need to consider various requirements for chemical processes as well, such as cost-efficiency, safety and sustainability. You will learn to map out these implications using mathematical models and state-of-the-art simulation software.

What will you learn?

As a graduate of this Master's and this specialisation, you have acquired specific, scientific knowledge, skills and values, which you can put to good use in your future job.

Knowledge
After completing this Master’s specialisation, you:
- have fundamental knowledge in the field of process engineering, e.g. chemical reaction engineering, catalysis, (molecular) separation techniques, and process dynamics and control;
- are familiar with simulation techniques in order to systematically design and develop new processes and understand the mathematical principles behind them;
- have an in-depth understanding of chemical processes ranging from a large industrial production scale to microscale.
Skills
- can design, develop and simulate a chemical process from beginning to end and make a techno-economic analysis and a sustainability evaluation of the chosen design;
- are able to deal with changes in the design process due to external circumstances or advancing insights and can adjust the process accordingly;
- can critically assess a chemical process and identify possible improvements.
Values
After completing this Master’s specialisation, you:
- are aware of social, environmental, economic as well as sustainability and safety aspects of the chemical and related industries;
- take on an active role in innovating production processes;
- can identify gaps in your knowledge, and you have a mindset to improve and extend your knowledge through study.

Other master’s and specialisations

Is this specialisation not exactly what you’re looking for? Maybe one of the other specialisations suits you better. Or find out more about related Master’s:

Master’s in Sustainable Energy Technology

Curriculum