Chemical Engineering at the University of Alberta Lucy Nolan, Fraser Forbes, and Ken Cadien
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
ChE department The Northwest corner of the University of Alberta North Campus, with the engineering buildings in the foreground and the North Saskatchewan River in the background. (circa 2007, Courtesy of Creative Services, Office of External Relations, University of Alberta) Chemical Engineering at The University of Alberta Lucy Nolan, Fraser Forbes, and Ken Cadien he year 1926 was a big one for Alberta; during this within the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineer- year, the Government of Canada gave the province ing, offering a uniquely cross-disciplinary blend of chemical control of its own natural resources.[1] It was also the and materials studies and process control. It has become the Tfirst year in which the University of Alberta, in its 18th year largest department of its kind in Canada, and one of the largest of operation at the time, offered courses in chemical engineer- in North America and the world. ing. More than 85 years later, both the province of Alberta and chemical engineering at the University of Alberta have THE ADVANTAGE OF SCALE expanded on the back of natural resources but also diversi- As of October 2013 the Department of Chemical and fied their interests. Both have become leaders in their fields. Materials Engineering at the University of Alberta hosted 54 Chemical engineering at the university is now incorporated faculty and academic staff, including the dean of Engineer- © Copyright ChE Division of ASEE 2014 ing, 396 graduate students, and 640 undergraduate students. 66 Chemical Engineering Education These are supported by 44 full- and part-time technical staff dation of the Imperial Oil Centre for Oil Sands Innovation members and 26 full- and part-time administrative staff (COSI) and the Canadian Centre for Clean Coal/Carbon and members. Three quarters of these are engaged in chemical Mineral Processing Technologies (C5MPT), and participation engineering or process control, with the remainder involved in the faculty-wide Helmholtz-Alberta Initiative (HAI). Re- in materials engineering activities. Altogether, the department search in the department has been advanced by the recruitment is the second largest granter of bachelor’s degrees in chemical of Dr. Thomas Thundat, holder of the Canada Excellence Re- engineering in Canada, and the third largest granter of Masters search Chair in Oil Sands Molecular Engineering. Dr. Thundat and Doctoral degrees. is one of only three Canada Excellence Research Chairs at As a result, we are able to command some of the most the University of Alberta and 18 across Canada. There are extensive and well-equipped laboratory space in chemical currently only three Canada Excellence Research Chairs held engineering, including the National Institute of Nanotechnol- by faculty members in Canadian engineering departments. ogy (NINT) and the Alberta Centre for Surface Engineering Dr. Thundat is the only CERC in any Canadian chemical or and Science (ACSES). Facilities include distillation columns, materials engineering department. Dr. Carlo Montemagno fluidized beds and so on, characterization tools such as SEM has also recently joined the faculty of the department and is and TEM, and delicate interfacial probes. looking forward to expanding his ground-breaking work in bio-nanotechnology. These world-class facilities are backed by world-class re- search support resources. This includes in-house specialized The publication rate of the department is comparable with computer support as well as machine and instrument shops. similar departments worldwide, such as MIT, the University An analytical chemist, a physicist, and an electron microsco- of Minnesota, and Georgia Tech in North America, and Impe- pist also maintain and operate analytical and characterization rial College in the U.K., as illustrated in Figure 1 (next page). facilities such as SEM and XRD. Through the department’s partnership with NINT, researchers in the department also RESEARCH CENTERS have access to the quietest laboratory space in Canada. In support of the research areas identified above, the CME The library at the University of Alberta is ranked 2nd in Department has established the following research centers: Canada and 11th in North America by the Association of Imperial Oil Centre for Oil Sands Innovation (COSI) Research Libraries.[2] The Science and Technology Library COSI was established in 2005 as a partnership between holds approximately 240,000 print volumes relating directly Imperial Oil, the Faculty of Engineering, and the Department to engineering, and has electronic access to more than 61,000 of Chemical and Materials Engineering, under the leadership standards from 15 different standards developing organizations. of Dr. Murray Gray. The success of the venture led to ad- These facilities allow researchers in the department to ditional support and partnership from the Alberta Ingenuity secure substantial funding from the federal and provincial governments and from industry. The total amount of research At a Glance: funding attracted to the department in 2011/12 was CAD$22 Chemical Engineering at the University of Alberta million, of which CAD$4 million was from corporate bod- ies. This is the highest level of industrial contribution of any Website http://www.cme.engineering.ualberta.ca/ department at the University of Alberta. The level of federal 1908 University of Alberta founded funding for research within the department is also higher than 1926 First Chemical Engineering courses offered at any other university in Canada. These excellent resources 1946 Department of Chemical Engineering founded History: allow exceptional faculty and staff to be recruited and re- 1985 Process Control incorporated into Department tained, and facilitate the development of great research and of Chemical Engineering training programs. 1996 Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering founded EXCELLENCE IN RESEARCH 396 Graduate Students (35% Female, Research within the Department of Chemical and Materials 80% International, 45% Doctoral) Engineering is focused in four main areas: 640 Undergraduates (33% Female) Vital 33 Full Professors • Energy and environment, Statistics • Nanotechnology, (As of 8 Associate Professors October 9 Assistant Professors • Biomedical engineering, and 2013): 3 Industrial Professors (2 in ESRM and 1 in • Information and communications technologies. Process Design) Significant achievements in these areas include the foun- Mean faculty age: ~46 years Vol. 48, No. 2, Spring 2014 67 Fund (2007) and Alberta Energy Research Institute (2008). industrial stakeholders. These stakeholders include Teck, Following the reorganization of the provincial funding body, Hatch, and Nexen, Inc. C5MPT aims to carry out research COSI is now partnered by Alberta Innovates Energy and En- and education in the areas of clean coal, mineral processing, vironmental Solutions. The national funding body NSERC and carbon capture, under the direction of Dr. Qingxia (Chad) has also provided support to the center through industrial Liu, a faculty member in the department and scientific direc- research chairs and other grants programs. COSI currently tor of the center. The annual research budget for C5MPT is has an annual research budget of approximately $3 million. approximately $1.4 million. COSI has a strong research record, leading to the publica- C5MPT currently supports 10 fundamental research projects, tion of 32 peer-reviewed papers since 2008. The unit is cur- of which nine are led by faculty members from this department. rently expanding its work by forming research partnerships with the University of Victoria, the University of British Canadian Centre for Welding and Joining Columbia, Queens University, and the University of Ottawa. The Canadian Centre for Welding and Joining was officially opened on May 5, 2010, and is led by Dr. Patricio Mendez Canadian Centre for Clean Coal/Carbon and in the newly established Weldco Industrial Research Chair. Mineral Processing Technologies (C5MPT) This center specializes in research on hard-to-weld materials, C5MPT was officially founded on June 24, 2012, as a part- including embrittled and aged metals; technologies to improve nership between the Department of Chemical and Materials quality and throughput; and non-destructive mechanical and Engineering, the Government of Alberta, and a number of corrosion testing. Figure 1. Publications in chemical Eegineering, by university, 2000-2011.[3] 68 Chemical Engineering Education Additionally, many of the NSERC Industrial Research for excellence in our educational activities. Industrial need Chair programs that are led by CME faculty (such as Drs. Xu, for engineers in Alberta continues to expand, and with that Huang, Shaw, and Kuznicki) may be considered as small to demand the size of our graduating class has more than doubled medium scale collaborative research groups in which other since 1996. At the same time, our graduate student popula- faculty are deeply involved. tion has more than tripled. In the face of this rapid growth and increasing class sizes, the need for excellent teaching is INDUSTRIAL PARTNERSHIPS—IDEAS IN always at the forefront. The continuing active involvement PRACTICE of our alumni in the mentoring of design projects and co-op The practical focus of much of our research naturally leads students is a cornerstone of our continuing success. A num- to industrial collaboration, and we recognize that seeing ber of these alumni have now returned to the university as good ideas through to commercial