Educational Groups in the School of Chemical Engineering
Petroleum Processing Group
Petrochemical department was established since 2001 in the school of chemical engineering. In the department, the undergraduate and graduate students are exposed to the latest developments in the petrochemical industry as well as obtaining a solid basis in the chemical engineering fundamentals. The educational programs are based on a co-operative education system, which we feel offers the best mix of educational knowledge and practical experience. The department with 7 associate professors and assistant professors conducts a range of research in the filed of chemical reactions kinetics (Reaction kinetics, polymers, catalysts) and thermodynamics. The department has two-research labs equipped with some one-line analysis apparatuses and computational systems.
Inorganic Chemical Processing Group
This educational group includes two major specializations of inorganic chemical processing and separation processes. This group possesses 4 research laboratories including; membrane processes, advanced separation processes, hydrogen and fuel cell, and inorganic chemical process technologies. In addition to its main duty of training researchers and specialists, this group has provided the scientific and industrial societies of the country with valuable research achievements.
The major specialization of inorganic chemical processing covers a relatively wide range of industries in three sections of non-metallic mineral industries (such as cement, ceramic, glass, … industries), intermediate mineral industries (mineral acids, bases, and salts industries), and metallic mineral industries (such as lead, zinc, copper, … industries). The strategic importance of these industries are due to their fundamental rules in development and advancement of human societies. The emergence of new inorganic chemical nano-products such as inorganic nano-materials and inorganic nano-coatings has drawn more attention towards these industries in recent years.
The other major specialization of this group is separation processes that is a distinguishing factor making chemical engineering different from other engineering branches. Processes like distillation, adsorption, extraction, membrane & electrochemical separations, crystallization, and drying are among the most important separation processes which play important roles in major industries such as petroleum, gas, petrochemical, food and pharmaceutical industries. Separation processes are based on differences in chemical and/or physical properties of mixture components such as size, shape, density, etc. In many of large chemical industrial units, approximately half of the operating costs are related to separation processes.
Due to the importance of these major specializations, expansion of educational and research activities of the group is one of the most important goals of the school of chemical, petroleum, and gas engineering.
Currently, this group has 7 faculty members as follows:
The Department of Simulation and Designing of Processes
This department consists of two subfields; 1- Designing, Simulation and Control of Processes, 2- Biotechnology. This department has been equipped with four research laboratories;
1- Simulation and Control of the Processes research laboratory.
2- Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
3- Computer Aided Process Engineering ( CAPE)
4- Biotechnology research laboratory
This department has been engaged in many of the applied and fundamental researches throughout the country. One of its missions is to optimally design the processes so that they are economical and operationally efficient, while producing no problem for the environment. In most cases to have an appropriate designing, we need modeling and simulation of the process. The modeling of the process is defined as the description of the nature of that system in terms of mathematical equations. Simulation means obtaining the process output information (e.g.the characteristics of the product) through the solution of above- mentioned models, which is based on the input information (e.g.the characteristics of the materials). Despite this simple definition, there are various uses of simulation in different processes of chemical industries. As some examples of its uses, we can refer to its uses in investigation and development of processes, process designing, appropriate exploitation of the existent utilities, process control, other aspects such as training the operators and connection to the management system. The Department of Designing and Simulation of Chemical Processes has accepted students of different educational levels since 1374. At the present, this department has 8 academic members with the above mentioned expertise.
There are 8 assistant and associate professors working in this group who are currently supervising a number of postgraduate researches in four research laboratories of the group: