- Chemical engineering in Bangladesh
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At the beginning of 20th century, the huge amount of chemical industry and their diversification needed experts who are not confined in industrial chemistry and mechanical engineering but also pioneer in process optimization. And the first chemical engineering discipline was started in Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1888. It is interesting to review that chemical engineering as a distinct profession ghhgh remained rather vaguely defined in continental Europe till the Second World War. The “Chemical engineering approach” was perhaps considered as a typically Anglo-American concept. However a colossal changed occurred after the 2nd World War and both the industry and the tertiary education system realize the need for rapidly adopting to the Chemical Engineering Approach”. From 1950 the chemical engineers became the professionals to check the feasibility of a process industry; to implement the feasible processes; to design the new process plant; to modify, operate or improve an established process.
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Situation in Bangladesh
But the scenario in Bangladesh is quite pessimistic. Here, still the process industries are operated by other professionals rather than the chemical engineer. Here, the industrial leaders just import technologies and experts from the foreign countries while setting up or troubleshooting a process plant and pay a lot more than that would require if local chemical engineers were appointed for the same job.
The industrial leaders of Bangladesh are totally unaware about the scope of chemical engineers in the chemical process industry. And the professionals, who are serving in the place of chemical engineer, do not have any knowledge and insight about the process. That is why, when a foreign party comes to implement a process plant, they always get enough chance to deceit the industrialists. There is no one in the industrialist’s side to challenge the foreign parties. Even in most of the cases the foreign parties leave the project in the midway without supplying all the contracted facilities. They also do not supply the technical documents to the industrialist so that the industrialist is bound to them for the smallest problems also and they took a very high consultancy fee for the troubleshooting and consulting purposes.
It is a matter of regret that our industrial leaders depend upon the foreign experts who are also chemical engineers but they don’t rely on the local chemical engineers. If they would rely on local engineers they could save a lot of currency and the local chemical engineers would get the chance of serving their motherland.
One example
A recent(in the year of 2008) local example is the revamping of Ashuganj Power Plant. The foreign contractor wanted 1000 million taka and 9 months for the purpose. But the local technologists did it in just 86 days for the cost of 2.7 million taka only.
This indicates that the local chemical engineers can do whatever the foreign experts can do and perhaps can do better comparing the cost and time requirement.
Where to study in Bangladesh
In Bangladesh the chemical engineers are graduated from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology(BUET) & Shahjalal University of Science & Technology(SUST) only. Established in 1948, the Department of Chemical Engineering, BUET has so far produced about 1400 graduates. More than half of them are in abroad. Almost all of the graduates are now established in industry and academia both at home and abroad.
The Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) was established in 1987. The Department of Chemical Engineering and Polymer Science,of SUST is the ?cr譥 de la cr譥? department of Shah Jalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh. The Syllabus of Chemical engineering & polymer Science of this department is designed to make specialized graduates in two special areas: Chemical Engineering and Polymer Science. Studying in Chemical Engineering is not new in Bangladesh, but the main specialty of this department is that it offers a lot of Polymer Science and Engineering courses (theoretical, sessional and research) in addition to the Chemical Engineering core courses. The department has an Instrumental Analysis Lab., which facilitates the chemical analyses with its modern instruments like, gas chromatography (GC), high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), UV-spectrophotometer, Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (AAS) and other small instruments. The unit operation laboratory is furnished with modern equipments like drying unit, ion exchange unit, heat exchanger unit, distillation unit etc. The department is also well set with the laboratories of fluid mechanics, polymer characterization, organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, reaction engineering, physical chemistry, and fuel & energy .The department is well equipped with computing facilities, which include personal computer, workstations, and access to the university network, which is turn enables to the Internet.
References
- The Official Webpage of the Dept.Chemical Engineering, BUET, Bangladesh
- The Official Webpage of the Dept.Chemical Engineering & Polymer Science, SUST, Bangladesh
External links
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