College of Engineering

Courses

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering

Chemical and biochemical engineers use physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics to aid in the invention and production of materials and processes that benefit society. For example, biochemical engineers might develop new technologies to produce polymers from biorenewable resources; and they might apply these polymeric materials in the field of medicine for the growth and repair of tissues and organs.

Chemical and biochemical engineers engage in a wide variety of activities that benefit the global community. Fuel cells, solar energy, and biorenewable fuels (e.g., biodiesel or ethanol) fall within the realm of chemical engineering. Chemical engineering distinguishes itself from other engineering professions with its reliance on chemical reactions and physicochemical transformations to produce a wide variety of important materials and products.

Biochemical engineers are involved in a wide variety of industrial biocatalytic, fermentation, and cell culture processes that generate products ranging from the high fructose corn syrup in soft drinks to recombinant human insulin.

As part of their training, chemical and biochemical engineers learn ethical design and a respect for the larger issues in any design, such as community health, employee safety, and the global implications of the design. The University of Iowa's curriculum emphasizes chemical process safety and environmentally conscious chemical engineering design.

Chemical and biochemical engineers work in a wide range of industries; petroleum and specialty chemical production, polymer or plastic production, food processing, microelectronics production, biochemical processing, and environmental compliance are just a few. Potential jobs include production, process development, plant design and construction, and fundamental research. Many experienced chemical and biochemical engineers move through management ranks to high-level administrative positions.

Undergraduate Program

a strong foundation of scientific and technical knowledge and are equipped with problem-solving, teamwork, and communication skills that will serve them throughout their careers;

the ability to pursue careers as practicing chemical engineers in fields such as pharmaceuticals, microelectronics, chemicals, polymers/advanced materials, food processing, or environmental engineering;

the ability to pursue advanced studies in disciplines such as chemical engineering, environmental engineering, medicine, law, or business; and

the ability to assume professional leadership roles.

foster a personalized, supportive environment for all students by taking advantage of the unique combination of a small college atmosphere in a major research university;

enrich the undergraduate experience through cultural diversity, and international opportunities or experiential learning;

provide a solid foundation and understanding of the fundamental principles of mathematics, science, and engineering;

provide students with experience in learning and applying tools (e.g., computer skills) to the solution of theoretical and open-ended chemical engineering problems;

provide students with opportunities to participate in multidisciplinary teams, and to develop and practice written and oral communication skills, both within the team and to a broader audience;

provide students with opportunities to design and conduct chemical engineering experiments, and to design systems, components, and chemical processes to meet specific needs and constraints; and

provide a contemporary grounding in professional responsibility, including ethics, the global and societal impact of engineering decisions, and the need for lifelong learning.

Bachelor of Science in Engineering

The sophomore, junior, and senior years emphasize chemical engineering courses such as engineering flow and heat exchange, mass transfer and separations, chemical reaction engineering, chemical process safety, chemical engineering laboratories, process dynamics and control, and process design. Experience in instrumentation, analysis, and design is obtained through an integrated laboratory program. Routine use is made of computer-based data analysis, simulation, and design.

Students are required to participate in at least one enriching activity, which may include a research experience, a cooperative education or internship experience, study abroad, completion of the Certificate in Technological Entrepreneurship, or other approved experiences.

Chemical engineering students may gain depth of knowledge related to a career path through their selection of physical science, engineering, humanities, and social science electives. Several preapproved elective focus areas may help students define potential careers.

The B.S.E. in chemical engineering requires a minimum of 128 s.h. The curriculum covers four major stems: mathematics and basic sciences, engineering topics, elective focus area, and general education (15 s.h. of humanities and social science courses). All students take 059:005-059:006 Engineering Problem Solving I-II and 010:003 Accelerated Rhetoric. General education component courses must be selected to satisfy the requirements of the College of Engineering. See "Curriculum Stems" and "General Education Component" under "Bachelor of Science in Engineering" in the College of Engineering section of the Catalog.

Elective focus area courses must be selected according to guidelines established by the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering. See "Elective Focus Area" after the following curriculum list.

Some courses in the curriculum are prerequisites to others. Students who take courses in the order below satisfy the prerequisite requirements automatically. Students who do not follow this sequence still must satisfy all course prerequisites.

FIRST YEAR

First Semester

Second Semester

SECOND YEAR

First Semester

Second Semester

THIRD YEAR

First Semester

Second Semester

FOURTH YEAR

First Semester

Second Semester

Elective Focus Area

Students may prefer to develop an individualized elective focus area, which is subject to approval by the department's curriculum committee. See the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering web site for detailed descriptions of preapproved elective focus areas, guidelines for tailored elective focus areas, and typical four-year study plans based on elective focus areas.

Graduate Programs

Research and Study Areas

BIOCHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL SEPARATION PROCESSES

Another core separation research area is the crystallization of biological macromolecules. Using a variety of environmental parameters such as pressure and temperature, researchers are evaluating the role of growth rate control on crystal quality. Other studies focus on improved crystallization screening protocols and crystal handling for subsequent structural determination via X-ray diffraction.

BIOCHEMICAL ENGINEERING

The department is working to solve problems with the use of insect cell culture for recombinant protein and viral insecticide production. Research is being conducted to improve the quality and quantity of recombinant proteins produced in large-scale bioreactors. In addition, a continuous viral insecticide production system is being developed for the large-scale production of these environmentally safe alternatives to chemical insecticides. The insect cell/baculovirus system is being used as a model system to investigate the role of oxidative stress in viral cytotoxicity.

CO2 accumulation, which commonly occurs in large-scale bioreactor systems, affects insect cell growth; the department's researchers are investigating the related baculovirus infection process.

Because cells generally adapt to the cell culture environment, they acquire properties significantly different from those of the tissue from which they were isolated, thereby diminishing the applicability of using cell culture to study in vivo conditions such as cancer. Department researchers are exploring methods to retain in vivo properties in cell culture.

The department works to design technologies for the characterization and use of extremophiles, organisms that possess unusual abilities to survive in harsh chemical environments. In these studies, novel bioreactor systems that can withstand extremes of temperature, pressure, pH, and salinity are being developed. Extremophile strategies for survival also are being studied, with the aim of discovering unique enzymes for industrial application as well as evaluating molecular interactions that govern protein stability under extreme conditions.

In addition to the study of natural extremophiles, efforts to engineer stability in biocatalysts for industrial processing are under way. Novel solvent-tolerant enzymes and organisms for environmentally beneficial chemical reactions are being generated using molecular biology tools. Combinations of chemical and biological processing are being used to produce valued chemicals from renewable feedstocks. This work contributes to the interdisciplinary training of engineers and scientists to address the challenges of minimizing and cleaning up environmental pollution, while maximizing the economic benefits of chemical processing.

The integration of biotechnology with traditional chemical engineering has led to an interdisciplinary area involving other engineering departments and the Departments of Chemistry, Biological Sciences, Biochemistry, and Microbiology, and the College of Pharmacy. This focus includes involvement in the University's Center for Biocatalysis and Bioprocessing, whose fermentation capabilities are highlighted by its 1,500-liter fermentor.

BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH

Students involved in animal research have access to the University's Office of Animal Resources, which is adjacent to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.

ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT

This work involves three centers and institutes on campus. The Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research brings together University scientists and scholars from more than 20 disciplines, including chemistry, civil and environmental engineering, geography, geology, law, and medicine. The center's chief area of concern is environmental change. Chemical and biochemical engineering researchers interact with scientists at IIHR--Hydroscience & Engineering, a research institute focusing on applied fluid mechanics; their collaborations involve environmental fluid mechanics and air pollution field studies. The Nanoscience & Nanotechnology Institute at UI provides an interdisciplinary home for chemical and biochemical researchers working on the development, application, and environmental and health effects of nanomaterials.

PHOTOPOLYMERIZATION

Photopolymerizations provide both spatial control and temporal control of reactions, since light can be directed to locations of interest in the system and is easily shuttered on or off. Photopolymerizations also provide solvent-free formulations, which reduce the emissions of volatile organic pollutants, and they exhibit extremely rapid reaction rates. These advantages have led to tremendous growth in the application of photopolymerizations in the private sector, but much of this growth has occurred without a fundamental understanding of the underlying chemical processes.

The department's research in this area focuses on comprehensive characterization of the kinetics, mechanisms, structure, and properties of photopolymerizations. Work includes the following types of studies: characterization of the photochemical processes by which polymerizations may be initiated; kinetic characterization of cationic photopolymerization; development of methods for photopolymerization of thick polymers and composites; development of photopolymerization systems based upon agricultural feedstocks; new methods for monitoring high-speed photopolymerization reactions; nanostructured materials through photopolymerization; biomedical devices formed by photopolymerization; and influence of order on photopolymerization reactions.

Master of Science

M.S. students must have a graduate g.p.a. of at least 3.00 in order to graduate. Each student must pass a final M.S. examination.

There is no foreign language requirement.

Graduate students who receive assistantships, fellowships, or other financial support awarded with the understanding that they will pursue an advanced degree with thesis are not eligible to elect the nonthesis option.

Graduate students in the nonthesis program may petition for entry into the thesis program or the Ph.D. program by requesting a change of status through the Graduate College. The request is reviewed by the graduate admissions committee. If it is approved by the committee, it is forwarded to the chemical and biochemical engineering faculty for final approval. Students then are assigned to research advisors as though they were newly admitted graduate students. For a detailed description of program requirements, see the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering web site.

Doctor of Philosophy

Ph.D. candidates are expected to maintain a g.p.a. of at least 3.25.

All doctoral students are required to satisfy a qualifying requirement and pass a comprehensive examination before they can become candidates for the degree. The Ph.D. comprehensive examination is the presentation and defense of the candidate's Ph.D. research proposal. These examinations are arranged by members of the examining committee and may be repeated at the committee's discretion. Comprehensive examination policies are published in the Manual of Rules and Regulations of the Graduate College (see the Graduate College in the Catalog). There is no foreign language requirement. A final examination, which is a defense of the thesis, completes the doctoral program. For a detailed description of program requirements, visit the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering web site.

Admission

Applicants should have a B.S. in chemical engineering, with satisfactory grades, from a recognized American college or university, and a g.p.a. of at least 2.80. Students who do not meet these requirements may be granted conditional admission, with the department chair's approval. Graduates of foreign universities may be accepted, depending on evaluation of their records.

Applicants must submit their verbal and quantitative scores on the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) General Test with their applications.

Graduate courses in chemical and biochemical engineering are designed for students who have an undergraduate background in chemical engineering. Exceptional students from other areas also may apply for admission to the M.S. or the Ph.D. program in chemical and biochemical engineering. If admitted, they may be required to take specific undergraduate courses to prepare them for graduate course work.

Financial Support

Graduate students have the opportunity to receive interdisciplinary research training in several fellowship programs administered through the Center for Biocatalysis and Bioprocessing (CBB). The program provides research training in areas that combine basic and applied research. Each year the center offers fellowships to doctoral students in biotechnology. These are funded by grants from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), and the CBB with funding from the State of Iowa. Through these programs, chemical and biochemical engineering students interact with students and faculty members from biochemistry, biological sciences, chemistry, civil and environmental engineering, medicinal and natural products chemistry, and microbiology.

Facilities and Laboratories

Undergraduate Core

MATERIALS SCIENCE LABORATORY

Required Undergraduate Laboratories

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING LABORATORY

The laboratory is continuously updated to reflect advances at the forefront of chemical engineering technology. Additionally, a wide array of small equipment is available to support laboratory projects and demonstrations in chemical engineering courses and for use by students performing independent investigations.

CHEMICAL PROCESS SAFETY LABORATORY

PROCESS CONTROL LABORATORY

The Computer Control Laboratory offers an ensemble of learning experiences with the same equipment, to provide analogies and better insight into the control process. Topics include determination of the gain and time constants for single capacitance systems; determination of gain, time constant, and damping factor of second-order processes; determination of the open-loop and closed-loop response to step and ramp changes in input for single capacitance and multicapacitance processes; approximations of multicapacitance systems as first-order and second-order processes with dead-time through experimental evaluation; analysis of instrumentation characteristics and transfer functions; tuning and optimization of feedback control parameters (P, PI, and PID); system identification through frequency response methods; determination of system stability; and development of feed-forward control schemes.

Experimental arrangements in the laboratory are simple enough in design to be easily understood, yet complicated enough to help students appreciate system characteristics inherent in industrial processes (e.g., large time lags, error in parameter estimation).

Graduate Facilities and Laboratories

AIR POLLUTION COMPUTATIONAL, FIELD, AND LABORATORY STUDIES

CGRER houses one R2 ImmersaDesk Portable Large Scale Visualization System and is linked on campus to two more R2 ImmersaDesk units.

The center's computer laboratory for environmental and spatial data analysis provides numerous Windows and UNIX workstations, sophisticated software packages, and workstations and a file server necessary to run intensive visualization programs. The network backbone is University supported with high-speed wireless throughout. A variety of digital environmental databases and an extensive library of documentation and related references are available. There are 4 Beowulf Linux clusters on site and Linux clusters of 4, 16, 18, and 20 nodes for large computations and data assimilation. CGRER retains 15 TB of redundant storage and 50 TB of total storage; local storage space is scalable and expandable. A variety of software packages and programming languages are available for data analysis and display, including Arc/Info, Arcview, NCAR Graphics, Matlab, S-Plus, and Vis5d, as well as geographical information software. The ESRI software suite is part of a University-wide site license.

Laboratory and field equipment includes aerosol samplers, including scanning mobility particles sizers for aerosols from 3 nm to 1 micron with time resolution to 30 seconds; aerosol particle sizers for aerodynamic measurements of in situ particles with time resolution to 1 second; and varied condensation particle counters for measuring total particle counts. Several hygroscopic tandem differential mobility analyzers are used, as well as varied aerosol generation devices and unique aerosol inlets for RH and temperature modification and control. Cloud droplet number can be measured in the lab or in the field using a Droplet Measurement Technologies cloud condensation nuclei detector. Advanced computer control of instruments is available through Labview.

Selected instruments are field deployable in a custom air conditioned trailer. Through collaboration with the IIHR--Hydroscience & Engineering, access to micrometeorology sensors, 1-D and 2-D elastic and Raman LIDAR, and gas sensors is available, including multichannel ammonia monitors (Pranalytica Nitrolux 200).

BIOCHEMICAL ENGINEERING

Through collaborative research agreements, graduate students also have access to specialized facilities for electron microscopy, protein structure, and recombinant DNA research; the Flow Cytometry Facility; the High Resolution Mass Spectrometry Facility; the Large-Scale Fermentation Facility; and the Tissue Culture/Hybridoma Core Facility.

COMPUTER FACILITIES

CRYSTALLIZATION STUDIES

FUNDAMENTALS AND APPLICATIONS OF PHOTOPOLYMERIZATION

The center provides equipment and instrumentation for the characterization of photopolymerization systems on the molecular, microscopic, and macroscopic levels. Center researchers pursue understanding of fundamental photophysical and photochemical processes involved in the photoinitiation reaction; characterization of high-speed propagation and termination kinetics that lead to the polymer structure; and evaluation of material properties through the course of the photopolymerization reaction. Both radical and cationic photopolymerizations are studied with state-of-the-art experimental techniques to elucidate the complex chemical and physical mechanisms that control the initiation, propagation, and termination of the active centers.

SEPARATION AND BIOSEPARATION PROCESSES

Courses