Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology

Studying Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology at Churchill College

If Sir Winston Churchill’s mission for the College named after him was to ‘educate advanced technologists’, chemical engineers and biotechnologists were the kind of people he had in mind. Previous students regularly return to College to pass on their experience by running workshops and practice interview sessions for students, and to catch up with everyone over dinner.

Churchill’s chemical engineers and biotechnologists, and Churchillians in general, are sociable and inclusive, and play an active role in a strong College community. The College is well equipped with facilities including a large library, squash courts, tennis courts and playing fields on-site, making it a fun and healthy place to live as well as study. The College is located literally over the road from the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology building on the West Cambridge Site, making it that bit easier to be there in time for 10 am lectures.

To support your learning, the College will provide you with a Director of Studies to oversee your academic development, and a Tutor to oversee your welfare and education in its fullest sense, both of whom will be Fellows of the College. Your Director of Studies and Tutor will form a view of your developing abilities, and advise on matters including course and career choices.

Chemical engineers and biotechnologists are people with a combination of science and engineering skills that are essential to answering the most important questions of the twenty-first century:

• What action should we take to combat climate change?
• How will we ensure access to affordable, reliable and sustainable energy for everyone?
• How will we produce enough food to end hunger, improve food security, improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture?
• How will we ensure the availability and sustainable management of clean water for everyone?
• How do we ensure sustainable production and consumption?
• How can we ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing at all ages?
• How do we make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable?

Chemical engineers and biotechnologists around the planet are helping to address exactly these types of question. Many of these challenges are enshrined in the UN Sustainable Development Goals and it is no coincidence that the challenges described above include the word “sustainable” more than once.

Researchers search for the answer to “can we do this?”. Chemical engineers and biotechnologists answer the question “can we do this for everyone?”. Many of the above challenges are easy to solve on a very small scale – the main challenge is often finding solutions that work efficiently and economically on an industrial, global scale.

Chemical engineers and biotechnologists have technical knowledge of chemistry, biochemistry, engineering, materials science, mathematics and information technology. They know about the environment and safety, about economics and management, and use the latest developments from science and computing to analyse and solve problems. They need this breadth of technical knowledge to be able to communicate and organise specialists to combine their expertise into scalable solutions.

Chemical engineers and biotechnologists devise, design, combine, and operate processes to produce and transport materials. From biofuels and batteries for clean vehicles, from sustainable energy to recyclable materials, from pharmaceuticals to foodstuffs, from the latest novel nanomaterials and advances in science – chemical engineers and biotechnologists make a positive difference to the world.

Here are are a few examples of how Cambridge chemical engineers and biotechnologists have made a difference to the world:

Carbon reduction. Churchill’s own Professor Markus Kraft is founding Director of the University’s first overseas research centre, the Cambridge Centre for Advanced Research and Education in Singapore, most often referred to as Cambridge CARES. The research centre hosts major research projects including the Cambridge Centre for Carbon Reduction in Chemical Technology (C4T), which investigate technologies to reduce carbon emissions and to transform carbon dioxide (CO₂) into compounds that are useful in the chemical industry.

Fuel cells. Fuel cells use chemical reactions to produce electricity. The first practical hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell was developed by Francis Thomas Bacon in the Department of Chemical Engineering (now the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology). These fuel cells played a key role in the Apollo missions to the moon in the 1960s. American President Richard Nixon later welcomed Francis Thomas Bacon to the White House, and told him; “Without you Tom, we wouldn’t have gotten to the moon.” Today, fuel cells are of widespread interest for the electrification of heavy goods vehicles.

Recycling of plastics. Pioneering technology to enable the recycling of plastic aluminium laminates was developed by members of the Department of Chemical Engineering in the early 2000s. This technology is in daily use by recycling company Enval and is important because more than 160,000 tonnes of previously unrecyclable flexible laminate packaging enter the UK every year for use in packaging for juices, toothpaste, cosmetics and pet food.

Full course details are provided on the Department’s Prospective Undergraduates webpage and the University’s Undergraduate Study webpage.