Subject Introduction
Mass Transfer :
“Mass Transfer” is not merely a subject to be read by a chemical engineering student or to be applied in process industries by a process engineer. In our daily life, we encounter a lot of casual
processes by each and everyone. In chemical engineering terminology, Mass transfer can be defined by - Mass transfer is the transport of a species from one point to another in a single phase or
from one phase to another generally in the presence of a difference in concentration ( or partial pressure), called the driving force. This is one of the numerous definitions proposed by experts.
Mass transfer occurs in major industrial operations like Distillation, absorption, adsorption, drying, liquid-liquid extraction, membrane processes etc.
Heat Transfer :
Heat transfer is the process of the movement of heat energy due to a temperature difference. In our daily life we encounter a number of natural processes which can be explained by heat transfer.
Heating or cooling of materials is an integral part of processing, production, fabrication jobs in engineering practice. Hardly any job or operation can be identified that does not involve heating
or cooling of a body or a material at some stage or other. Heat always tend to flow from point of high temperature to point of low temperature. It is a unit operation and always accompanied by another
unit operation in practice such as refrigeration, evaporation, drying, distillation etc. Heat transfer can be broadly classified into conduction, convection and radiation.
Chemical Reaction Engineering :
Chemical Reaction Engineering (CRE) is a specialized area of chemical engineering and technology involving chemical reactions, catalysts and reactors. CRE is the heart of chemical process industry.
The whole process efficacy and sustainability moves around the performance of catalyst and/or reactor. Therefore, CRE is a specific engineering activity emphasizing on successful design and operation
of chemical reactors and associated with the exploitation of chemical reactions on laboratory to the commercial scale. The key objective of CRE is focused on the study and optimization of chemical
reactions to achieve best reactor design and performance, which involved the interactions of flow phenomena, mass and heat transfer, and reaction kinetics. The reactor performance is likely to be
related to feed composition and reaction operating conditions through the aforementioned factors.
Fluid Mechanics :
Fluid mechanics is the study of fluids either in motion (fluid dynamics) or at rest (fluid statics). Both liquids and gases are classified as fluids. It is a highly visual subject with good instrumentation.
Knowledge of fluid mechanics is essential for the chemical engineer because the majority of chemical-processing operations are conducted either partly or totally in the fluid phase. There are two principal
reasons for placing such an emphasis on fluids. First, at typical operating conditions, an enormous number of materials normally exist as gases or liquids or can be transformed into such phases. Second, it
is usually more efficient and cost-effective to work with fluids in contrast to solids. After completing detailed studies on principles of fluid mechanics, students will be able to apply them in fluid
machineries such as pump, compressor, turbine, fan, blowers etc.as they are the basic building blocks of any process industry.