<p>I'm not sure whether I should pursue a chemical or materials degree, but I do know that my interests lie in
- materials
- biotechnology
- a blend of materials and biotech such as tissue engineering
- fuel cell (and all that hydrogen economy stuff)
- nanotechnology (which I hear is mostly materials science anyway). </p>
<p>Which discipline should I choose?</p>
<p>Because 3 of your 5 reasons contain the word "materials," I vote materials. Anyway, you can always change your mind later.</p>
<p>chemical is harder and more process related but a more versatile degree. It can relate very well to materials (my prof does research on carbon nanotubes and even that related to bio too as they are being tested as biosensors).</p>
<p>Which one is closer to designing "stuff"?</p>
<p>prolly materials. It's a good major. I considered it as far as engineering and then just decided to go for versatility because I like my options kept open. But if you know that's what you truly want, go for it.</p>
<p>I'm not one of the brightest people in the country so I think I'll take your advice and go with the versatility, just so I have something to fall back on.</p>
<p>BTW Illini, have you dealt with materials science whether it is a lab or internships? If so, can you tell me how much overlap there is between chemical and materials engineering?</p>
<p>I don't have much experience but a good friend of mine is a MatSE. I had a lab that was close to materials science but other aspects dealt with bioengineering and chemE. It was all about the carbon nanotubes. One area was biosensors (read about it: <a href="http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/06/0126nanotubes.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/06/0126nanotubes.html</a> & <a href="http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/06/0217dna.html)%5B/url%5D">http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/06/0217dna.html)</a>. The other area was trying to make them stick together (rather than slide, some interesting developments with weaving them together have taken place I think at UT-Austin) for use as building material (space elevator) and research was being done to try and make a polymer out of them but a strong one (most of the early epoxides [worked on this 2 years ago and was very young so much of it was over my head] looked like chunky tar).</p>
<p>Here's some materials & EE related research in another area of chemE. About silicon chips and defect engineering. Some of my friends work in his lab: <a href="http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/04/0927seebauer.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/04/0927seebauer.html</a>.</p>
<p>Recently the ECE department at MIT just came up with a huge breakthrough in capacitors: ultracapacitors. They are only able to store as much energy as surface area will allow and have been limited because of that. Carbon nanotubes, being so miniscule, have been able to increase the surface area (chemically much like dust like particles [Quik, instant tea] dissolving in solvent very quickly as opposed to bigger fragments due to increased surface area) and make them much more effective for use as infinitely chargeable batteries as opposed to chemical reaction limited batteries. Very cool stuff. (I wrote all of this thinking it was our department where I read this and then realized it was MIT's haha oh well still awesome though.) <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/batteries-0208.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/batteries-0208.html</a></p>
<p>ChemE just gets more exciting every time :D I hope I'll be able to work closely with cutting-edge technology in the future.</p>
<p>Thanks for the links.</p>