New Directions for
CHEMICAL
ENGINEERING
Committee on Chemical Engineering in the 21st Century:
Challenges and Opportunities
Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology
Division on Earth and Life Studies
National Academy of Engineering
A Consensus Study Report of
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, DC
www.nap.edu
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This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research Program under Award Number DE-SC0019159; the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, Advanced Manufacturing Office under Award Number DE-EP0000026/89243420FEE400139; and the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management under Award Number DE–EP0000026/89303018 FFE400005. This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied; or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed; or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof. The activity was supported by the National Science Foundation under Award Number CHE - 1926880, as well as private contributions from universities, industry, and professional organizations (Appendix D). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or any organization or agency that provided support for the project.
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Suggested citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. New Directions for Chemical Engineering. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/26342.
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COMMITTEE ON CHEMICAL ENGINEERING IN THE 21st CENTURY: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
Members
ERIC W. KALER, NAE (Chair), Case Western Reserve University
MONTY M. ALGER, NAE, The Pennsylvania State University
GILDA A. BARABINO, NAE, NAM, Olin College of Engineering
GREGG T. BECKHAM, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
DIMITRIS I. COLLIAS, The Procter & Gamble Co.
JUAN J. DE PABLO, NAE, University of Chicago
SHARON C. GLOTZER, NAS, NAE, University of Michigan
PAULA T. HAMMOND, NAS, NAE, NAM, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
ENRIQUE IGLESIA, NAE, University of California, Berkeley
SANGTAE KIM, NAE, Purdue University
SAMIR MITRAGOTRI, NAE, NAM, Harvard University
BABATUNDE A. OGUNNAIKE,1 NAE, University of Delaware
ANNE S. ROBINSON, Carnegie Mellon University
JOSÉ G. SANTIESTEBAN, NAE, ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company, retired
RACHEL A. SEGALMAN, NAE, University of California, Santa Barbara
DAVID S. SHOLL, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
KATHLEEN J. STEBE, NAE, University of Pennsylvania
CHERYL TEICH, Teich Process Development, LLC (until September 2020)
Consultants
PHILIP B. HENDERSON, EMD Electronics
REINALDO M. MACHADO, EMD Electronics
LAURA MATZ, EMD Electronics
Staff
MAGGIE L. WALSER, Study Director
BRENNA ALBIN, Program Assistant
BRITTANY BISHOP, Christine Mirzayan Science Policy Fellow
KESIAH CLEMENT, Research Assistant
ANNE MARIE HOUPPERT, Senior Librarian
GURU MADHAVAN, NAE Senior Director of Programs
REBECCA MORGAN, Senior Librarian
NICHOLAS ROGERS, Deputy Director, Program Finance
LIANA VACCARI, Program Officer
JESSICA WOLFMAN, Research Associate
ELISE ZAIDI, Communications Associate
___________________
1 Deceased, February 20, 2022
BOARD ON CHEMICAL SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY
Members
SCOTT COLLICK (Co-Chair), DuPont
JENNIFER SINCLAIR CURTIS (Co-Chair), University of California, Davis
GERARD BAILLELY, The Procter & Gamble Co.
RUBEN G. CARBONELL, NAE, North Carolina State University
JOHN FORTNER, Yale University
KAREN I. GOLDBERG, NAS, University of Pennsylvania
JENNIFER M. HEEMSTRA, Emory University
JODIE L. LUTKENHAUS, Texas A&M University
SHELLEY D. MINTEER, University of Utah
AMY PRIETO, Colorado State University
MEGAN L. ROBERTSON, University of Houston
SALY ROMERO-TORRES, Thermo Fisher Scientific
REBECCA T. RUCK, Merck Research Laboratories
ANUP K. SINGH, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
VIJAY SWARUP, ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Corporation
Staff
MAGGIE L. WALSER, Interim Board Director
BRENNA ALBIN, Program Assistant
MEGAN HARRIES, Program Officer
AYANNA LYNCH, Program Assistant
THANH NGUYEN, Finance Business Partner
LINDA NHON, Associate Program Officer
EMMA SCHULMAN, Program Assistant
ABIGAIL ULMAN, Research Assistant
BENJAMIN ULRICH, Senior Program Assistant
LIANA VACCARI, Program Officer
JESSICA WOLFMAN, Research Associate
Reviewers
This Consensus Study Report was reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in making each published report as sound as possible and to ensure that it meets the institutional standards for quality, objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process.
We thank the following individuals for their review of this report:
Although the reviewers listed above provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations of this report nor did they see the final draft before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Thomas Connolly Jr., American Chemical Society, and Elsa Reichmanis, Lehigh University. They were responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with the standards of the National Academies and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content rests entirely with the authoring committee and the National Academies.
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Acknowledgments
This study would not have been completed successfully without the contributions of many individuals and organizations. The committee would especially like to thank the individuals who participated in our town hall at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) 2019 Annual Meeting and the AIChE Virtual Local Section meeting in spring 2020. We are grateful as well for the insights provided by respondents to our community questionnaire in spring 2021 (Appendix C), as well as by the numerous individuals who spoke to the committee during an open information-gathering session or otherwise provided input, and we thank the organizations that contributed financial support for this study (Appendix D). We also are grateful to Elsevier for providing access to its SciVal tool.
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In Memory of Babatunde A. Ogunnaike
Professor Babatunde (Tunde) Ogunnaike was a valuable member of the report committee who passed away just after the report was released in 2022. Tunde’s contributions can be seen in every part of the report. He had a broad and deep knowledge of our field, and his perspective and clear thinking both empowered forward thinking and constrained the growth of bad ideas. His kind spirit and easy style of collaboration made him a true joy to work with; his fluid and precise writing style, tireless energy, and ability to meet a deadline made him an ideal committee member. Tunde was a warm and engaged scholar with valuable insights and a broad vision that spanned many areas of chemical engineering. Beyond his engineering contributions, Tunde was incredibly generous with his time, teaching and mentoring countless early career scientists and engineers and leading his College. He was a true friend to many, and those of us who were lucky to know him carry with us a bit of Tunde in the example he leaves for us. Our community has lost a giant.
Eric W. Kaler, Chair
On Behalf of the Committee and Staff
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Preface
“It is hard to make predictions, especially about the future.”
Attributed to many. And true.
Yet we as a group accepted the challenge of developing a report designed to articulate the status of and challenges and promising opportunities for the field of chemical engineering in the United States, as well as benchmark its international stature, for the next 10 to 30 years. A committee comprising 17 chemical engineers with diverse backgrounds, expertise, and life experiences explored a question not investigated by the National Academies since the 1980s: What is the future of chemical engineering?
As the only engineering field with molecules and molecular transformations at its core, chemical engineering represents an area of intellectual inquiry and commercial applications that is profoundly important for society’s future advances in such vital areas as energy, food, water, medicine, and manufacturing. Chemical engineering is also the natural door through which the implications and applications of molecular biology—writ large in its current incarnations, including genetic engineering, personalized medicine, organs-on-chips, and even artificial intelligence—enter the realm of practice and application. The future of this field has crucial implications for what the future looks like for everyone.
Despite remarkable advances and contributions, the legacy of chemical engineering is complicated. As a profession and a discipline, chemical engineering has enabled the cost-effective production of materials and chemicals. On the other hand, the durability of some of these products, such as plastics and fluorinated chemicals, continues to have unintended consequences for the environment. At the same time, energy transformations have generated greenhouse gases that threaten Earth’s climate. It is essential, therefore, that any future advances in the field address the history of the advances of the past—an emphasis throughout this report.
The report describes how chemical engineering is well positioned to serve as the enabling discipline in advancing the decarbonization of energy systems and materials without compromising reliability and cost, and while remaining cognizant of the existential threat of global climate change. In the foreseeable future, no single energy carrier will be able to meet the energy demands of all sectors, and the work of chemical engineers will play a vital role in informing the selection of options for the scale-up, delivery, systems integration, and optimization of the mix of energy carriers that will address the world’s energy needs with lower carbon emissions and costs across all regions and sectors of society. At the same time, global pressures associated with climate change, energy demand, and population growth will change, in unprecedented ways, the ways in which humans meet their needs for food and water. As in the past, chemical engineers will confront these challenges through such enabling technologies as precision agriculture, the development of protein alternatives, and the reduction or elimination of food waste.
Chemical engineers also will be leaders in the engineering of targeted and accessible solutions for human health. Their domain of influence will range from personalized medicine
to the application of systems engineering to biology and health. This work will include strategic modification of the molecular pathways and genomic networks involved in the regulation of both normal physiology and disease states. It will also include the application of systems-level thinking to the production of and end-of-life considerations for useful materials, including polymers and a variety of other hard and soft materials, in a circular economy. Chemical engineers will lead the way as well in the application of new tools—such as machine learning and artificial intelligence—to solve complex problems.
As for the U.S. position in chemical engineering, it is critical to note that China is making large investments in technologies that are either central or highly relevant to chemical engineering. These investments, combined with China’s accelerating productivity and scholarly output, makes investment in the U.S. research enterprise imperative. Failure to make these investments will cede global leadership not only of chemical engineering, but of technology more broadly.
I commend the committee members for their enthusiastic engagement and hard work. We all found our ways to collaborate and communicate while constrained by the COVID-19 pandemic, but I know we also all missed the synergies and spontaneous insights that in-person conversations would have generated. While we engaged in virtual meetings and chats instead of face-to-face meetings, at the end of the day, the creative engagement and critical thinking of the group made it possible to crystallize important ideas. Finally, but of crucial importance, the expert guidance, gifted diplomacy, and detailed engagement of the National Academies staff, led by Dr. Maggie Walser and including Kesiah Clement, Dr. Liana Vaccari, and Jessica Wolfman, made this report possible.
Eric W. Kaler, Chair
Committee on Chemical Engineering in the 21st Century:
Challenges and Opportunities
Contents
Educational Challenges and Opportunities
Growth of Interdisciplinary Work
3 DECARBONIZATION OF ENERGY SYSTEMS
Energy Conversion and Efficiency
Carbon Capture, Use, and Storage
4 SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS
Molecular Science and Engineering of Water Solutions
Understanding and Improving Air Quality
5 ENGINEERING TARGETED AND ACCESSIBLE MEDICINE
The Role of Biomolecular Engineering in Health and Medicine
Engineering Approaches to Improving Therapeutics
Modeling and Understanding the Microbiome
Design of Materials, Devices, and Delivery Mechanisms
Hygiene and the Role of Chemical Engineering
Engineering Solutions for Accessibility and Equity in Healthcare
6 FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING AND THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY
Intersection of Manufacturing and Chemical Engineering
Feedstock Flexibility for Manufacturing of Existing and Advantaged Products
Process Intensification and Distributed Manufacturing
The Circular Economy and Design for End of Life
7 NOVEL AND IMPROVED MATERIALS FOR THE 21st CENTURY
Polymer Science and Engineering
Complex Fluids and Soft Matter
8 TOOLS TO ENABLE THE FUTURE OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
Data Science and Computational Tools
9 TRAINING AND FOSTERING THE NEXT GENERATION OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERS
The Undergraduate Core Curriculum
Becoming a Chemical Engineer: The Importance of Diversity
Making Chemical Engineering Broadly Accessible
Teaching Undergraduate Students Today and Tomorrow
Teaching Graduate Students Today and Tomorrow
New Learning and Innovation Practices to Address Current Challenges
Publication Rates and Citation Analysis
B JOURNALS USED IN INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKING
C SUMMARY OF RESULTS OF THE CHEMICAL ENGINEERING COMMUNITY QUESTIONNAIRE
