BIRLA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCE, PILANI

DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

Brief Introduction about the Department

The Department of Chemical Engineering at BITS-PILANI is one of the premier departments in the country that provides a unique educational and research environment. We have a major emphasis on interdisciplinary, industrial collaborations. Our primary missions are to educate undergraduate and graduate students, and to discover and disseminate knowledge through research.

The department is committed to achieving excellence in these activities, and evaluates the success and leadership of its programs using the highest standards of quality, innovation, and visibility, while at the same time providing a friendly and supportive atmosphere. Our goal is to provide to our students strong fundamentals complemented by professional skills including communication. Our other important goal is to produce students and faculty who will become leaders in their areas.

Growth of the Department

The faculty in the department of chemical cngineering has been increased in number as well as in area of interests as compare to the previous years. The growth of the department of chemical engineering is going hand in hand with the world scenario as it is enriched with the faculty members with interest in advanced fields such as evolutionary computation, advanced separation technology, computational fluid dynamics, nanotechnology, artificial neural network applications, advanced process control, energy integration, drug development, etc, apart from the already existing research areas which include environmental engineering, energy engineering, mass & heat transfer, modeling & simulation, multi-phase reactors.

• Brief description of Ongoing Research funded projects
  
  
• Ph D Research Topics/Projects being undertaken
  
  
• Research facilities available
  
  
• Research area wise availability of faculty and their profile

Salient Features (First Degree / Higher Degree / Doctoral Programmes) and recent developments:

First Degree Programme:

Intake: 60 single degree students + 30 dual degree students
Elective Courses Offered: 27
Environmental Pollution Control; Process Equipment Design; Process Plant Safety; Transport Phenomena; Biochemical Engineering; Combustion Engineering; Computer Aided Process Plant Design; Corrosion Engineering; Refrigeration and Air Conditioning; Advanced Process Control; Special Projects; Fluidisation Engineering; Petroleum Refining and Petro-chemicals; Environmental Management Systems; Evolutionary Computation; Chemical Engineering Analysis; Project Engineering; Alternate Energy Resources; Process Plant Simulation; Computational Transport Phenomena; Advanced Separation Technology; Computer Aided Analysis and Design; Advanced Mass Transfer; Advanced Heat Transfer; Fluid Dynamics; Advanced Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics; Reaction Engineering.

Higher Degree Programme:

There are two programmes running at higher degree level.

• M.E. Chemical Engineering

• M.E. Chemical Engineering with specialization in Petroleum Engineering

M.E. Chemical Engineering

Intake: 20 students (10 in each semester)
This higher degree programme in Chemical Engineering denoted as M.E. (Chemical) initially with 1.5 years duration (three semesters of six month duration each) has been started in 1986.  Taking the developments in the discipline, the course content and the structure have been modified and updated in 2002 with 2 years duration (four semesters of six months duration each).

Objectives:

• To produce post-graduate students in chemical engineering with sound knowledge and to sharpen their analytical & logical skills to cater to the needs of industry and academia.
• To contribute to the society development by undertaking relevant research projects as a part of their dissertation work (on-campus) in the Institute or through practice school project (off-campus) in the premises of industry.
• To impart hands-on experience in the usage of most widely used professional software packages such as HYSYS and FLUENT.

Special features:

• The programme is packaged with a strong research component.
• All the courses have a project component of 20% weightage.
• Apart from the project in each course, the research component is further strengthened by means of Professional Practice-1 (PP-1) course in second semester, Professional Practice-2 (PP-2) course in third semester, and finally the dissertation work in the final and fourth semester.  In fact, a very well organized research work can be carried out over a span of three semesters through appropriate planning by properly linking PP-1, PP-2, and dissertation work.
• In the final semester, the students have the option of choosing between dissertation work (on-campus) and practice school (off-campus in the premises of relevant industry). 

Input Qualification:
B E / B Tech in Chemical Engineering

M.E. Chemical Engineering with specialization in Petroleum Engineering

There is a need felt in terms of importance of Petroleum Engineering being required in the coming years in the country. Petroleum exploration in high seas and in some parts of the country has met with some success. There are many plants in the country which undertake petroleum refining such as Indian Oil Corporation Ltd., Reliance Petrochemicals, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd., etc., The downstream processing has gone through many generations of developments. Starting with ethylene, propylene, methano, ethanol, etc. we have third generation of petrochemicals such as plastics, rubber and fibers. Keeping in view the above facts, this new higher degree programme is started in Chemical Engineering with a specialization in Petroleum Engineering.

Intake: 20 students
This higher degree programme in Chemical Engineering with specialization in Petroleum Engineering denoted as M.E. (Chemical with specialization in Petroleum Engineering) has been started in 2009. It consists of four semesters of six months duration each.

Objectives:

• To produce post-graduate students in chemical engineering with sound knowledge of petroleum background in reservoir, refining and downstream process.
• It is also designed to sharpen their analytical & logical skills to cater to the needs of industry and academia.
• To contribute to the society development by undertaking relevant research projects as a part of their dissertation work (on-campus) in the Institute or through practice school project (off-campus) in the premises of industry.
• To impart hands-on experience in the usage of most widely used professional software packages such as ASPEN and FLUENT.

Special features:

• The programme is designed in such a manner that along with the advancement in chemical engineering, a defined knowledge is also being provided in the feild of petroleum sector such as reservoir, refining and petrochemicals.
• The programme is packaged with a strong research component.
• All the courses have a project component of 20% weightage.
• Apart from the project in each course, the research component is further strengthened by means of Research Practice course in second semester and the dissertation work in the final and fourth semester.  In fact, a very well organized research work can be carried out over a span of three semesters through appropriate planning by properly linking research practice and dissertation work.
• In the final semester, the students have the option of choosing between dissertation work (on-campus) and practice school (off-campus in the premises of relevant industry). 

Doctoral Programme:

PhD Completed (last 5 years): 5
PhD Submitted (2005): 2
PhD Ongoing: 6

Research Activities:

The research activities in the Department of Chemical Engineering are increasing by leaps and bounds each year. The faculty members are involved in basic research fields of chemical engineering such as energy engineering, environmental engineering, separations, CFD to interdisciplinary research fields such as modeling & simulation, multi objective optimization and biochemical engineering. The faculty members attended various seminars, conferences and have numerous publications in international journals to their credit in the academic year 2010-11. The department research work has resulted in publications of 21 research papers in highly rated and reputed international journals and 22 papers in International Conferences / Proceedings.

The faculty members have attended several International Conferences such as Chemical Engineering Congress (CHEMCON), International Congress on Renewable Energy (ICORE), India International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Emerging Technologies in Intelligent Systems and Control (EISCO), Symposiums in Biosciences held at Coimbatore, International Congress of Chemistry and Environment(ICCE-2011) in Malaysia.

Futuristic Scope / Ambition / Plan to improve the Department:

Department of Chemical Engineering is planning to introduce the interdisciplinary courses to feed the students in fields such as Environmental Management Systems, Energy Integration and Energy Management, and Advanced Separation Processes.

Besides the existing lab facilities, the department is focusing on the advancement of laboratory such as Process Control lab, CAD Lab, Transport Phenomena lab, Environment Pollution Control Lab by equipping them with latest instruments. The department is also planning to enhance the Measurement Techniques- II lab which will be beneficial to the students of all the disciplines.

The department is committed to set up new laboratories in the advanced research fields such as Energy Engineering, Reaction Engineering, Petroleum testing and Nano Technology.

Around 8 research proposals have been submitted to various sponsoring organizations such as UGC, DST, MNES, AICTE, etc.