Chemical Engineering In An Evolving World

William J. McKettrick

English III Honors

Mrs. Kopp
February 26, 2014

William J. McKettrick
Mrs. Christine Kopp
English III Honors

McKettrick 1
26 February 2015
Chemical Engineering In An Evolving World
The importance of chemical engineering in the modern age surpasses all other
professions. To observe this significance, one must simply view the development of society
throughout the 20th century and how it mirrors developments in chemical engineering. Early in
the 1900s, people began relying on cars for transportation as opposed to trains and animal-driven
carriages, a development that created a constant need for liquid fuel. Chemical engineers
responded to this demand by focusing on the extraction and refinement of fossil fuels, with many
advancements in energy sources still emerging to this day. As a side effect of the massive city
growth in the late 1800s to early 1900s, diseases began to spread like wildfire. Chemical
engineers played a role in the development of vaccines and antibiotics by studying the synthesis
of such medications and creating methods of mass producing them. Prior to engineers coming up
with ways to increase the availability of the smallpox vaccine, the virus killed more children than
any other disease. Despite all of their contributions to public welfare, chemical engineers have
also played a role in certain detrimental developments. By making gasoline a widely available
fuel, they made it possible for people to live farther away from their jobs, which offered
convenience at the cost of harmful emissions and urban sprawl. Also, chemical engineers played
an important role in the development of chemical weapons in World War I, resulting in the death
of thousands and the harm of over a million (Fitzgerald). Chemical engineers frequently branch
out into many different career paths in various industries. Certain chemical engineers deal more
closely with the public than others, such as those working in food science, a discipline of
engineering that heavily relies on observing trends and responding to public demand. Some
chemical engineers experience much less interaction with the public, fulfilling a role similar to

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chemists through their research and experimentation. Genetic engineers perform tests in
laboratories and analyze their results. All chemical engineers possess the ability to change the
world through their research.
The profession of chemical engineering evolved rapidly since it became one of the most
important jobs in America at the start of the 1900s. Many advancements after the turn of the
century relied on chemicals rather than improving the mechanical processes that limited the rates
of processing and manufacturing. Advancements in the understanding of disease-causing
microbes necessitated research into the development and synthesis of drugs to fight various
diseases. As the worlds understanding of chemical processes progressed, the scope of chemical
engineering widened. Some of the most important developments in chemical engineering came
halfway through the century, with the discovery of DNA and environmental concerns having the
most lasting effects (Narodoslatosky 2021-2022). After researching the effect of chemicals on the
environment around them, researchers singled out certain dangerous chemicals, such as
chlorofluorocarbons. International regulations and bans now restrict the use of such chemicals.
Regulations fail to prevent the emission of some of the chemicals known to have the most drastic
effect on the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, for example, gets released in such proliferous volumes
that it causes significant global warming, but mankinds dependency on fossil fuels makes it
impossible to cut carbon dioxide emissions on a global scale. Until a cheap and efficient
alternative to fossil fuels makes it to the market, Earths atmosphere and environment will
continue to deteriorate unheeded by mankinds pathetic attempts at making petroleum-based
fuels efficient.
Genetic engineerings roots came into existence long before the discovery of DNA or the
rise in popularity of chemical engineering. Geneticists trace their study to the work of Gregor

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Mendel, who first proposed the concept of inherited traits in the mid 19th century. Mendel lived
as a monk in Brunn, Austria. His most famous discovery, that of heredity and inherited traits,
occurred after seven years of experimentation on pea plants. He originally noticed that certain
plants produced peas of different colors and textures, and by breeding different plants based on
their traits, became the first person to study heredity. In 1900, after the death of Mendel, his
discoveries came to light and he received proper recognition for pioneering genetic engineering
(Tagliaferro). After the discovery and modification of DNA, genetic engineers became closely
intertwined with chemical engineers, and today, experiments in genetic modification heavily rely
on the use of chemistry to ensure success.
An unfortunate period of chemical engineerings history occurred 100 years ago. With the
assassination of Franz Ferdinand and a sudden war, Europes greatest minds began developing
chemicals for use as weapons. Chemical attacks quickly became a common event in the trenches.
Chemical warfare existed long before World War I, however. Documents traced back to ancient
European and Asian societies recorded the use of poisonous fumes during warfare. Thucydides
wrote of a Peloponnesian attack on Plataea in which the attackers assaulted the town using
sulphur fumes. Greek fire, a substance whose recipe remains unknown to modern historians,
helped the Byzantines maintain naval superiority due to its napalm-like qualities. Athenians used
a toxic herb called hellebore to poison the water supply of a town under siege (Spiers 27-28).
While these ancient societies did not actually use chemical engineering in the development of
their chemical weapons, their military cunning clearly inspired later European combatants,
perhaps even the armies that participated in World War I.
The major belligerents of World War I fully invested in their scientists and engineers. For
this reason, certain historians have referred to the war as The Chemists War. The development

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and extensive use of toxic gasses created immense dangers for not only the soldiers on the
battlefield, but also villages caught in the fighting and those working in the manufacturing of the
chemicals. The first large scale gas attack of World War I occurred on April 22, 1915, when
German unleashed over 160 tons of chlorine gas on unsuspecting French soldiers. Over 1,000
men died in the attack, and the French reported over 4,000 injuries. Through attacks like this one,
chemical weapons such as chlorine, phosgene, and mustard gas affected over 1.3 million men,
killing about 90,000 (Spiers 30-31). The war brought with it many impressive feats of
engineering, such as tanks, submarines, zeppelins, and biplanes. While those inventions
revolutionized the combative element of war, the use of chemical weapons led to a psychological
effect on soldiers unlike any other military advancement made in the 20th century. The amount
of deaths from gas attacks, while significant, came nowhere close to matching the deaths to
gunshot wounds and disease. Even Germans, who started the trend of using chemical weapons in
WWI, voiced their displeasure regarding the use of toxic gasses in battle. Rudolph Binding, a
German officer, wrote I am not pleased with the idea of poisoning men. Of course, the entire
world will rage about it at first and then imitate us. (Spiers 31) This shows that the German did
not use chemical weapons solely for an advantage in battle, but also to advance warfare and
introduce a new aspect of fighting.
The chemical industry seems less important now than it did in prior years. The role of
chemical engineers has never held a more crucial position in the everyday survival of humanity,
however. Humans have begun producing much more waste, and our interaction with nature has
created turmoil in various ecosystems. Chemical engineering now must develop a cleaner
chemical industry to promote sustainability. Chemistry allows society to interact with the world
in the most direct way possible.

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The most urgent problem facing chemical engineers today involves the refining of
antiquated industrial processes that place an excessive or unnecessary level of stress on the
environment. Many claim that the environmental effects of mankind went unnoticed until the
1960s, but a Finnish newspaper from the early 20th century shows otherwise (Lahtinen and
Vuorisalo 1). Perhaps people knew of the harm that they caused on the environment, but
considered it a necessary evil, or just lacked the ability to view the damage from a wider
perspective. Regardless, until the mid-1900s, environmentalists received very little attention.
However, since this rise in environmental awareness, the public has pressured many companies
to cut down on emissions of harmful materials. The pressures placed on these companies affected
chemical engineers by calling for the rethinking of various processes in the name of
sustainability. The development of new manufacturing methods and safer materials, as described
by Byrne, requires a team of engineers to look into every step of production with the hope of
finding ways to reduce emissions and create less dangerous products. Numerous times over the
past 50 years, chemical engineers have overcome these challenges with the goal of lessening the
damage dealt to the environment by industrial processes and mankinds waste.
The human body does not operate as a single unified structure, but rather as a complex
system composed of trillions of cells working in different ways to achieve survival (Tagliaferro).
One can view human survival as a result of the cooperation of these cells. Not all cells play a
helpful role in the human body, however. Sometimes, cells become corrupted and begin behaving
differently. If large groups of cells get corrupted, they can form cancerous masses. Also, certain
cells have the ability to infiltrate the body and cause damage, such as bacteria and viruses. Some
bacteria actually help humans. One example of helpful bacteria resides in the digestive tract and
helps break down food. Harmful bacteria, not normally found in the body, can cause a plethora

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of diseases. Chemists and microbiologists have developed antibiotics to combat the bacteria that
cause diseases. Prior to the discovery of penicillin, humans had to face the threats of bacteria
such as pneumococci, staphylococci, and streptococci without the protection of antibiotics
(Penicillin). Similarly, prior to the discovery of the smallpox vaccine, it killed an incredible
number of people. Some sources claim that smallpox killed more people than any other disease
in human history. As late as 1967, the virus still caused over ten million deaths annually, despite
the fact that Edward Jenner discovered the vaccine over 150 years earlier (Smallpox).
Chemical engineers played a vital role in the manufacturing of important antibiotics and vaccines
by carefully balancing the chemical compositions of the drugs in order to prolong their effective
shelf life and increase their potency.
Genetic engineering involves the study of genetic material and, in recent years, the
modification of genes. People inherit genes, the name given to specific proteins produced by
patterns within DNA that dictate how bodies develop, from their parents. Each strand of
deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, forms a double helix, which looks like a twisted ladder. The
rungs of the ladder, formed by two parts called bases, create the patterns that determine what
genes an organism displays. Millions of base pairs compose a single strand of DNA. DNA
molecules tightly coil into chromosomes, which reside in the nucleus of every cell of the human
body. In the 1970s, geneticists discovered enzymes that naturally attacked foreign genetic
material as a defense against viruses and bacteria. By manipulating these enzymes, they found
that they could replace certain sections of DNA strands and edit the genetics of organisms
(Tagliaferro). The effects of their discovery revolutionized genetic engineering. Along with the
ability to modify DNA came the power to code various traits and immunities into embryos.
Genetic engineers also successfully achieved the perfect replication of a living creature through

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cloning. Effectively identical twins, clones allow experimentation without any possibility of
genetic dissimilarities corrupting the results. Chemical engineering holds a position at the core of
modern genetic engineering due to the need for chemical delivery agents in order to effectively
modify genes.
Currently, chemical engineering faces some of the greatest challenges of its history. Due
to rising concerns about global warming and pollution, companies need engineers to optimize
their industrial processes with limited wasteful emissions. MIT professor John Ehrenfeld defined
sustainability as the possibility that humans and other life will flourish on Earth forever (Byrne
27). In order to make make sustainability viable, engineers not only must limit industrial
byproducts, but also utilise renewable resources and clean energy sources. Specifically, engineers
want to replace fossil fuels, which have limited quantities and release harmful chemicals when
used, with cleaner fuels such as those derived from crops. Extracting fuel from sources such as
corn with current technology takes more time and energy than petroleum (Narodoslatosky 2021).
Until manufacturing biofuels becomes less expensive than current fuel extraction processes,
wasteful fossil fuels will dominate the market. The burden of making all processes sustainable
falls upon the chemical engineers working in research and development.
In 2001, leaders of the chemical engineering community signed the Melbourne
Communique at the Sixth World Congress of Chemical Engineering. By signing the document,
members of the congress agreed to promote sustainability in their sections of the community
(Duckett 48). The public has become increasingly more aware of humans effect on the
environment, but businesses have not made enough of an effort to reform their harmful practices,
so the deterioration of the environment goes on. The planets current plight of pollution exists
due to businesses valuing profit over sustainability. For this reason, chemical engineers must

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completely focus their efforts on rethinking current industrial processes in a way that allows
humans to coexist with the world around them, while keeping them profitable for businesses.
Due to the importance of chemical engineers, which will continue to grow until reliable
solutions to current sustainability issues get discovered, America needs more young people to
enter the field. The largest group of chemical engineers will retire around 2030, and students will
need to fill the positions that these older engineers currently occupy. Companies look for not
only skills in science and mathematics in engineering prospects today, but also proficiency in
other subjects (Salzer 26). Other than companies looking to reduce harmful emissions, jobs for
chemical engineers exist in the biotechnology field and as refinery operators in the oil industry
(Jones). The outlook for current students looking to enter chemical engineering shows
challenges, but also a large variety and quantity of jobs.
With the education of a chemical engineer or chemist, ones career path could diverge in
many different directions. Opportunities in areas such as biotechnology and polymer science
regularly present themselves to chemical engineers, along with other options among the many
divisions of chemistry. All industries require chemists in one way or another, including the
pharmaceutical, photographic, telecommunications, and environmental cleanup industries. New
stories emerge every day about the problems that face chemical engineers and threaten the rest of
the world, such as the disposal of Cold War-era nuclear material. Environmental management
currently offers one of the fastest growing areas for chemists and chemical engineers, and that
trend will continue as the worlds population grows and new waste disposal methods become
necessary. Evidently, engineers need to develop new methods of waste disposal, as well as create
new biodegradable products to replace wasteful plastic and paper products.

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For the first time, the amount of engineers retiring will exceed the amount of students
entering the field, and if that trend continues, the profession will become even more valuable
(Salzer 26). North Carolina State University, only a few hours away from Pine Lake Preparatory,
offers one of the most respected engineering programs in the country. It offers in-state tuition for
under $10,000 per year, and its graduate school offers the opportunity for chemical engineers to
achieve doctorate degrees. NC States campus lies in the Research Triangle of North Carolina, an
area that serves as the headquarters for many chemical research companies, and offers many job
opportunities for recent graduates.
Chemical engineers have already proven their worth in America and the world. They play
a vital role in various stages of manufacturing and distribution, including procurement of
materials and managing logistics. Through every step of research and development, chemical
engineers play vital roles, and their training in analytical thinking makes them invaluable in
advancing and refining various processes (Beckett). Without their help, the price of vaccines
would make them only available to the wealthiest of individuals due to scarcity. Motorized
vehicles could not have become the dominant mode of transportation, and transportation might
not have even evolved beyond its level at the turn of the century. In this world of waste,
companies need chemical engineers to step up and think outside of the box. Without the
ingenuity that engineers have shown time and time again, the environment will continue to feel
the abuse of humanitys byproducts.
The world constantly changes, and the world of chemical engineering has changed
remarkably in a short period of time. Engineers and chemists went from having little
understanding of the less conspicuous operations of the world around them to their current level
of understanding in just a few hundred years. People did not even recognize chemistry as science

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in its earlier days, because of the incredible effects it can produce. After the various intellectual
advancements that the Enlightenment brought with it, people became more open to science and
reason. For the most part the world has continued to shift closer to science in the past few
hundred years, and those that deny reason become more excluded as time goes on. Meanwhile,
chemical engineers have become indescribably important to all facets of global industry.
Engineers play important roles in research and development, management, and production. In the
current global push for sustainability, the responsibility to lead the way for reform falls on the
chemical engineers that have the power to change the processes that cause the most damage to
the environment.

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