The principles and concepts of chemical engineering can be applied over a wide array of issues and fields of study. This has resulted in chemical engineers working in many different fields ranging from pharmaceuticals, energy, micro-technology and even the food processing industry. The industry a chemical engineer enters is often dictated by the region of the country they are from. For example, chemical engineers in New England most commonly work in the pharmaceutical industry or for one of the many biotech companies founded in recent decades. Engineers in on the Gulf Coast will typically work within the Petroleum industry, while those in the Midwest enter the food processing industry, working for companies like General Mills.
One of the fastest growing industries in the country is renewable energy. There are many types of renewable energy, such as hydroelectric, solar, wind and geothermal, which all have positive and negative elements associated with them. Hydroelectric is cost efficient and can generate vast amounts of electricity, and as a result has already been widely developed across the country. Future developments are met with some resistance as the dams needed to generate the power can alter the local ecosystem. Wind and solar are both considered somewhat inconsistent sources of power generation as they are weather dependent. Geothermal has the largest potential for power generation out of any of the renewable fields, but can only be developed in very specific regions of the world that have the higher volcanic activity required to generate geothermal power. In addition, the initial cost to find a suitable location and construct an operational geothermal power plant are extraordinary.
Cities require large amounts of power to operate effectively. While residents of cities consume power at comparable rates to their suburban counterparts, the dense population center results in much larger total consumption per square mile. In addition, the city itself consumes much more power to operate public services, such as street lights, transportation systems and other required functions. In an attempt to reduce Boston’s carbon footprint, civil authorities and the public have sought ways to introduce more renewable energy sources to the city. Chemical engineers are well suited in their discipline to assist in this endeavor.
Boston’s geographical location eliminates geothermal and hydroelectric power as realistic options, leaving solar and wind power. Solar power has far more potential to provide a significant portion of Boston’s required power. Solar panels can be installed almost anywhere the sun normally shines, but are expensive and have low energy efficient, usually around 15-20%. Chemical Engineers are working to develop more efficient solar panels, using micro-technology to change the surface that the sun’s photon’s interact with on the panel which has had considerable success on a small scale, increasing the panel’s efficiency to 40%. In addition, chemical engineers are working on advanced storage systems to hold excess power that is generated during the day for later use. These storage systems, such as ion flow batteries, allow for a cheap and cost effective method of storing energy in a reversible chemical reaction, that can easily be scaled to suit any amount of power storage.
