Chemical Engineering vs Materials Engineering

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>I've read a bit on this forum, but I'm still confused. So basically in chemical engineering you create chemical plants and equipment in which the products are manufactured on/in, but it is in materials engineering where the actual materials are made?</p>

2

<p>Materials engineering rages from developing new materials and making existing materials better to process engineering type jobs like process design and all the stuff you’d typically see ChemE doing.</p>

<p>I think they just tend to target themselves towards different parts of the market. ChemE is usually “softer” materials where most of their processing is done in the liquid state, while materials tends to deal with things where you really need to be concerned with the properties of the solid itself moreso.</p>

3

<p>Thanks!</p>

<p>10char</p>

4

<p>Related question: how does Materials Science and Chemistry differ?</p>

5

<p>Look at the difference between freshman-level textbooks for the two fields and I think you’ll see what each one concentrates on. I used [url=&lt;a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Materials-Science-Engineering-William-Callister/dp/0471736961/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1295818434&sr=8-2]this[/url”&gt;http://www.amazon.com/Materials-Science-Engineering-William-Callister/dp/0471736961/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1295818434&sr=8-2]this[/url</a>] book freshman year in materials, and later on had a whole semester class on pretty much every chapter in the book (plus some stuff not covered).</p>

<p>I imagine in Chemistry it’s similar.</p>

6

<p>Check your chemistry department to see if they have materials electives or things related to materials outside of the required year of physical chemistry. Contrary to what beaver said, in Chemistry you won’t have a class on everything in the book, at least not at my school. After basic concepts, we covered organic for a year, physical (thermo, stat mech, quantum) for a year, analytical techniques for 2 quarters and biochemistry/advanced inorganic for a quarter each. Biochemistry wasn’t even a chapter in my book, nor was stat mech, and we didn’t get classes on polymers, solid state or electrochemistry which were in the book, they’re all grad classes. My school doesn’t have many undergrad chemistry electives not related to organic/biochemistry/pharmaceuticals. There’s 1 materials lab.</p>