(Part 2) Best products from r/ChemicalEngineering

Try reading the "Ice Cream" book, Applying S88: Batch Control from a User's Perspective. It was recommended to me from a colleague who worked at Emerson (who developed DeltaV) as a standard introduction to S88 methodology and control implementation.

https://www.amazon.com/Applying-S88-Batch-Control-Perspective/dp/1556177038

Fun fact, DeltaV's hierarchy is laid out using S88 as a basis for the entire program. It is very well laid out in terms of the top down approach S88 suggests. It gives layout suggestions and rules of thumb in equipment organization for scheduling, acquiring, and releasing certain pieces of equipment for the batch's recipe. DeltaV is made for this stuff.

You may also hear about Honeywell Experion's Batch manager (which is total garbage in my professional opinion). It's really only used as a means to quickly migrate legacy Honeywell batch code. You can do the same stuff in their application control environment (ACE) node with recipe control modules and sequential control modules but it's not as well laid out in terms of program hierarchy as DeltaV.

Siemens also has a robust batch program but I'm not too familiar with it.

Have fun though with this type of stuff! Once you get the process vetted and approved with minimal downtime, optimal batch executions and robust troubleshooting/fault handling, it really pays off and feels like you've made a difference. Good Luck!

I had a brief but exciting stint working in an electrochemistry lab and have spent some time reading about various topics in electrochemistry such as batteries, photovoltaics, and semiconductor materials. It seemed to me the gold standard in electrochemistry textbooks was Bard - it is still a goal of mine to save up the money to purchase the latest edition (though if you are savvy you can probably find a pdf online).

Another book that I've found interesting and thorough is Gretchen Bakke's The Grid . This book discusses the evolution of the American electric grid and the challenges that come with integrating various renewable technologies.

Lastly, if you are into batteries - check out flow batteries. I'm unnecessarily into flow batteries... especially ESS, Inc's All Iron Flow Battery . Energy storage is something that could change our future... I'd like to work in this field someday as well. Hopefully some of what I shared is valuable!

Nice! In your co-op I expect you'll be exposed to different forms of basic regulatory control in the field as you mention PLC ladder logic as well as P, PI, and PID loops and how to implement those from the DCS to the actual instrumentation out in the field. I also expect you to be involved in advanced regulatory control as well. Advanced Process Control is a supervisory system that sits on top of DCS or PLC logic and determines what setpoints the process should go to in order to maintain all of the process constraints while minimizing cost of operation. Before APC can be applied you need to make sure regulatory control is working well because that's what gets the process to the setpoint, APC just determines what that setpoint should be.

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Basic and Advanced Regulatory Control: System Design and Application by Harold Wade is a great practical book on process control. It covers what you actually use to be a good control engineer in industry instead of how control theory is taught in school. Chapter 15 gives a good introduction on advanced process control. It goes by other names such as Model Predictive Control (MPC) and Dynamic Matrix Control (DMC). A summary of Model Predictive Control on Wikipedia is pretty good.

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In general you don't need additional schooling there are practitioners that have masters degrees in chemical engineering or control engineering but most only have a bachelors in chemical engineering. For some reason a lot of new engineers are intimidated by controls because their exposure to one course in college. I as well as all my peers I have talked to find the work very fulfilling.All you really need is a desire to go into the field and let your employer know you're interested in going that route. Company's like AspenTech, Honeywell, Emerson, Yokogawa that sell MPC software to process plants have training classes for their customers to learn more about their specific software.

Hmm, you probably won't get a real taste of a chemical engineering course until sophomore year of college.

I'm not sure of any books on general information about chemical engineering, however here is a good link.

If you want to get a good advantage over other students I would recommend learning how to study in college.

These two are pretty good. One Two

Best of luck!

Forget some of the others comments about running aspen, it is a very expensive program and chances are your school will only have it on their desktops. My department had really shitty desktops with intel pentium or celeron processors and they ran aspen fine since our simulations were usually pretty small anyway.

You will use Excel, Google Docs, and MATLAB the most, all which can be run on pretty much any new computer. If I were to do my undergrad again i would just focus on buying a PC with a SSD as the top priority as I hated all the slow load and boot times that come with a HDD.

Honestly after a brief amazon search something like this for $450 would be more than enough spec wise, or if you want to do some light gaming here is one for $550 which would be also great. To me battery life did not matter as i always had the charger in my bag and there are outlets everywhere, and as far as any programs I ran I could have got away using a $100 laptop. There were some students who didnt even own laptops as they just exclusively used school computers. Others had Macs which couldnt even run some of our software. Dont overthink it and just get something half decent you will enjoy.

I always really liked the aesthetics of old chemical plants. The inside of the guinness storehouse comes to mind. Around the refinery where I used to work, there were sketches like this one. I took this photo one morning, walking into work. You'd walk in some mornings through the steam, with the flare in the background, and feel like they had a dragon back there or something. You could also maybe see if you can find some technical drawings, like this one of a distillation column. Maybe you could look into historical photographs, like in this book about the gasworks of London. Hope that helps you out.

So that means you passed the FE. Do you mind if i ask you some questions? if u dont mind XD
did you take the ChE FE exam?
Yes. Used the FE chemical review manual linked here:

https://www.amazon.com/Chemical-Review-Manual-Michael-Lindeburg/dp/1591264456/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1521574134&sr=8-1&keywords=fe+chemical+review+manual

tips when it comes to actually taking it? everyone said to abuse CTRL + F. but i was very annoyed when i took the test because on my exam, ctrl F

I used control F... lol. I did not have any problem really in using the find function.

You should have used the che specific study manual, That is the one I used and it worked like a charm. Good luck.

That job sounds about right for an analytical chemist tbh. You asked for Books and I will give you books.

The all-around grand champion book for chemical engineers to have is Perry’s handbook.

In chemistry you did remedial thermodynamics in comparison to what chemical engineers are given, so I suggest this book as a primer in chemical thermodynamics. It covers phase equilibria, basic thermodynamics, and non-ideal behavior at a depth not seen in chemistry programs.

For heat and mass transfer I used this book in my undergrad. This is something that was almost certainly left untouched in your chemistry program.

For reaction engineering, I used [Folger’s book] (https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Chemical-Reaction-Engineering-4th/dp/0130473944/). You might recognize some of the constituent pieces, but this will bring it all together to solve for definite times and conversions.

More applicable to your direct job is process control. [Bequette's book] (https://www.amazon.com/Process-Control-Modeling-Design-Simulation/dp/0133536408/) will probably be one of the most directly important books on this list for you as far as process monitoring goes. And [this book] (https://www.amazon.com/Analysis-Synthesis-Processes-International-Engineering/dp/0132618125/) will give your insight into why processes are made the way they are.

The most important book in the list is [Process Safety] (https://www.amazon.com/Chemical-Process-Safety-Fundamentals-International/dp/0131382268/). It is important that you understand what is and is not dangerous, along with what it and is not safe. You can skip the blast calcs, but do look at the TLV data, because that will come up for emissions.

This list is overbuilt and if you only have time for 3 pick the last 3 I listed and pick up a cheap Perry’s handbook for reference.

I learned reaction engineering from Fundamentals of Chemical Reaction Engineering by Davis and Davis. I thought it pretty clearly explained concepts and the examples were decent. It also has the great low price of free from the University of Virginia as an open-source textbook. If you prefer a hard copy amazon has them for like $25.

Yes, a control chart is what you want, but please be aware that the formal control limits are not just three sigma from the average, there is a more complicated formula that incorporates comparisons of the data over time for your range. See if you can find a copy of this book (the one I have has a totally different cover if that helps). Also, you might have better luck searching on "spc" as I believe this is the most common acronym.

http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Statistical-Process-Control-Wheeler/dp/0945320698

https://www.amazon.com/Existential-Pleasures-Engineering-Thomas-Dunne/dp/0312141041

Not quite on chemical engineering, but this book really made me think of my role as an engineer, and how a lot of the decisions we make on a regular basis cannot be evaluated objectively, and how for that reason it is really important to develop and maintain a strong ethical foundation.

Kind of a plug for my professor but look into "practical numerical methods for chemical engineers". Excellent book for learning excel.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1479146439?pc_redir=1398356511&robot_redir=1

This is the first edition but is still more than sufficient

I got my PE last April. I recommend you get a study manual with practice problems from amazon and work your way through it chapter by chapter. Then, a month before the exam start the NCEES practice exam questions over and over again until you understand how to do each question. The NCEES questions are really close to those on the exam with a few twists and a few new ones thrown in. You should be spending 10 hrs each week for 4 month preparing for it. I recommend this series of review manuals: Chemical Engineering Reference Manual for the PE Exam, 6th ed. also Unit Operations of Chemical Engineering and Levenspiel's Reaction Engineering. Also, get yourself a copy of Crane TP410.

Edited to correct links.

I think I had this for a sophomore class and found it too basic to be of value. Maybe unit ops

https://www.amazon.com/Unit-Operations-Chemical-Engineering-McGraw/dp/0072848235

Transport and thermo and some applications