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The History of MIT Chemical Engineering

An International Leader in Engineering Education

The Department of Chemical Engineering at MIT has been built on innovations in theory and practice, unique instructional programs, an abiding concern with the needs of industry, and the very definition of chemical engineering. Our work is inspired by the example of those individuals who founded chemical engineering as an academic curriculum at MIT and then developed the tools that would distinguish and advance the profession.

The Beginning
The first chemical engineering curriculum was offered by Lewis M. Norton as a new Course of study within the Department of Chemistry at MIT in 1888. Norton's Course combined mechanical engineering with industrial chemistry. As the course catalogue of 1888 described it, this curriculum was being forged "to meet the needs of students who desire a general training in mechanical engineering, and at the same time to devote a portion of their time to the study of the applications of chemistry to the arts, especially to those engineering problems which relate to the use and manufacture of chemical products." In 1891, the Department granted seven Bachelor's degrees in the new Course, accompanying eleven in the traditional chemistry curriculum. After Norton's death in 1893, Frank H. Thorpe led the Course through a continued rise in popularity. Thorpe's Outlines of Industrial Chemistry was published in 1898.

Distinction
In the early 20th century, William H. Walker modified the curriculum in a way that would clearly distinguish chemical engineering as a profession. Walker, with alumnus Arthur D. Little, developed (1) idea of unit operations — those basic operations that compose the variety of industrial processes (2) a research laboratory dedicated to industrial chemistry and processes (3) a School of Chemical Engineering Practice.

Definition
In 1920, a separate Department of Chemical Engineering was formed with Warren K. Lewis as head. About this time, Lewis, Walker, and William H. McAdams, together with some graduate students, spent a summer at Walker's home in Maine. There they created the nucleus of Principles of Chemical Engineering, the 1923 text that quantified unit operations and thus gave engineers the tools to analyze chemical processes.

The Texts
Principles could be said to define the profession; in addition, MIT faculty wrote texts that focused on particular unit operations, and others that advanced chemical engineering practice into new areas. Several of these went through multiple editions, with new contributing authors, in the succeeding decades. Some examples are Elements of Fractional Distillation, by Clark S. Robinson in 1922, Heat Transmission, by McAdams in 1933, Absorption and Extraction, by Thomas K. Sherwood in 1937, Thermodynamics for Chemical Engineers, by Harold C. Weber in 1939, Applied Mathematics in Chemical Engineering, by Sherwood and Charles E. Reed in 1939, The Properties of Gases and Liquids, by Robert C. Reid and Sherwood in 1958, Radiative Transfer, by Hoyt C. Hottel and Adel F. Sarofim in 1967, and Mass Transfer in Heterogeneous Catalysis, by Charles N. Satterfield in 1970. This list omits other worthy texts within and after these years.

The Results
Since its inception, the Department has led the nation in awarding graduate degrees; and its nearly 6,000 living alumni have distinguished themselves through positions of responsibility and leadership in industry, government, and academia.

  • More than 10% of its alumni are senior executives of industrial companies.
  • More than 10% of the nation's teachers of chemical engineering earned one or more degrees from MIT.
  • Nearly 25% of the recipients of major awards presented by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the American Chemical Society's Murphree Award have been alumni or faculty of MIT.
  • Nine faculty have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
  • Of the nearly 100 chemical engineers elected to the National Academy of Engineering, 20% have been alumni or faculty.

For further information:

O. A. Hougen, "Seven Decades of Chemical Engineering," Chemical Engineering Progress, vol.73, no.1, p.89, 1977.

W. F. Furter, ed., "History of Chemical Engineering," based on a symposium cosponsored by the ACS Divisions of History of Chemistry and Industrial and Engineering Chemistry at the ACS/CSJ Chemical Congress, Honolulu, Hawaii, April 2-6, 1979.