Reaction Engineering + Catalysis
Reaction engineering focuses on the study of complex reactions, their rates and mechanisms, the reactors in which they are conducted, and the associated design and optimization to produce valuable products.
Reaction engineering and catalysis are at the heart of chemical processes and chemical engineering, since the production of almost any value-added product involves chemistry and reactions. Catalysts increase the rates and selectivity of chemical reactions, and most industrial chemical processes employ catalysis, without which they would not be able to produce any significant quantity of the products in a reasonable time.
Possible Careers
- Reaction engineer
- Catalysis scientist/engineer
- Chemical process engineer
Current Research
Research on homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis is conducted with focus on:
- development of new catalytically active materials and catalysts,
- computational description and modelling of catalysis,
- improving fundamental understanding in catalysis, and
- application of catalysis to address societally and industrially relevant problems.
Research in reaction engineering is complimentary to the catalysis research, but also includes reaction engineering of uncatalyzed processes and machine learning for the control of reactors. Both theoretical and experimental research in reaction engineering is conducted.