 The Aeronautics and Chemical Engineering Extension as seen from Callendar Road | |
| Established | 1912 |
|---|---|
Head of Department | Professor Nilay Shah[1] |
| Faculty | Imperial College Faculty of Engineering |
| Staff | 43[2] |
| Students | 857[3] |
| Location | London, United Kingdom 51°29′57″N 0°10′39″W / 51.499137°N 0.177630°W |
| Campus | South Kensington |
| Website | www |
| Map | |
  Location in Albertopolis, South Kensington | |
The Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London is the centre of teaching and research in chemical and process engineering at Imperial College London, occupying the Aeronautics and Chemical Engineering Extension (ACEX), Bone and Roderic Hill buildings, on the South Kensington campus. Formally inaugurated in 1912,[4] the department has over 40 faculty members, 100 postdoctoral researchers, 200 PhD researchers, 80 taught postgraduates, and 500 undergraduates. The department ranks 7th on QS's 2018 world rankings.[5]
Following the grant of a royal charter for the formation of Imperial College in 1907, a Department of Chemical Technology was proposed in 1908 and formally opened in the year 1912, housed within the Department of Chemistry in the Royal College of Science.[4] Professor William Bone was appointed the first head of the department and oversaw the construction of the new building on Prince Consort Road to house it. In 1931, the first Postgraduate Course in Chemical Engineering began, followed in 1937 by the first undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering. The first four-year undergraduate degrees were established in 1980 and in 1989, Professor Roger W. H. Sargent founded the Centre for Process Systems Engineering in the department. In 2003, the first MSc in Advanced Chemical Engineering was introduced.
The department has a variety of labs and facilities in the Aeronautics and Chemical Engineering Extension building, including an analytical services lab with more than 20 major instruments, a mechanical workshop to design and manufacture prototype equipment and the college's Carbon Capture Pilot Plant. The £2 million Carbon Capture Pilot Plant, which opened in 2012, is housed in the department and is the most sophisticated of its kind in an academic institution in the world.
The undergraduate program at the department is a 4-year integrated course leading to an MEng degree in Chemical Engineering, including an option to study a year abroad. There is also the option of a specialist stream in Nuclear Engineering (delivered jointly with the Department of Materials and Mechanical Engineering).[citation needed] All students graduating with the MEng degree also automatically receive an Associateship of the City and Guilds of London Institute.[6]
The department has a large research portfolio and offers a PhD degree programme, four full-time MSc programmes and one part-time course.[citation needed] The PhD in Chemical Engineering is a 3-year research degree which involves conducting work in one of the department's research laboratories, the Centre for Process Systems Engineering or the Qatar Carbonates and Carbon Storage Research Centre. All postgraduate students of the department are also eligible for the Diploma of Imperial College, DIC, alongside their standard degree when graduating.
The college ranks 10th in the world for engineering on the Times Higher Education subject rankings,[7] and the department in particular ranks tied 7th in the world (along with Caltech), and 3rd in the UK after Cambridge and Oxford, on the QS World University Rankings.[8] Domestically, the department ranks 3rd on the Complete University Guide's 2019 chemical engineering table,[9] and 4th on The Guardian's 2019 chemical engineering university subject rankings.[10]
