The Department of Chemical, Materials and Production Engineering offers Bachelor and MSc courses in Chemical Engineering and Materials Engineering. Furthermore, it offers a MSc Course in Mechanical Engineering for Production in cooperation with the Department of Industrial Engineering, and a Bachelor and MSc courses in Biotechnology in cooperation with the Chemistry Dept. and the Biology Dept.
Chemical Engineering
Chemical engineering is a discipline that connects various areas of science and technology. Chemical engineers devise and design processes by applying basic sciences, mathematics, statistics and engineering knowledge. Their main competence is to transform raw materials into products with greater added value by respecting the environment and the human health. The modern chemical engineer is often involved in the development of new materials and innovative processes, from the lab to the industrial scale. Nowadays, chemical engineering also intervenes in energetics, pollution control and treatment, advanced materials and biomaterials, biomedics, and nanotechnologies.
The large number of companies, whose success depends on the efficient synthesis and processing of materials and chemicals, creates a constant demand for chemical engineers. In addition to the traditional examples such as the chemical, energy and petrochemical companies, job opportunities multiply in the world of biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, electronics, and environmental engineering. The education of a chemical engineer and his transversality is strategically important whenever industrial processes involve chemical and physical transformations of matter.
The Course track proposed by our Department fosters the development of multiscale approach capabilities to the description of the chemical and physical transformations of matter, starting from statistical/molecular microscopic aspects and reaching the macroscale of the entire plants. The curriculum (Bachelor and Master degree) in Chemical Engineering of our Department is focused to the acquisition of a broad-spectrum training, with strong basis in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and basic engineering disciplines, together with the nucleus of specific disciplines such as thermodynamics, transport phenomena, chemical kinetics, design of reactors, biochemistry, and process design. This approach guarantees the wide cultural latitude of chemical engineers as an essential condition for a successful professional integration in the fast changing employment and technological scenarios.
Materials Engineering
The course of studies in Materials Engineering offered by our Dept. is divided into a three-year bachelor degree in Materials Science and Engineering and Master of Science in Materials Engineering. The three-year degree is centered on the scientific and engineering base of this discipline and the Master degree is primarily focused on scientific and technological aspects.
The curriculum as a whole has the goal of forming an engineer able to ‘design’ materials for industries ranging from aerospace, automotive, biomedical to the agro-food industry. The idea is to create or optimize the materials on the basis of the relations that exist between the structure (atomic and microscopic) , the processes of transformation and properties of engineering interest for structural and functional applications. This design work often is also based on ‘ bio-mimetic ‘ criteria, that is, on the imitation of what nature has done in creating complex structures for various functions.
In particular, the course combines synergistically a microscopic approach, typical of the basic physical and chemical sciences, with a macroscopic approach, typical of the engineering culture. In this way it is possible to relate the macroscopic properties of materials with their chemical and physical structure. The course is, therefore, largely interdisciplinary, requires the harmonization of scientific cultures, engineering and technology.
The training focuses on very solid skills in basic disciplines such as physics , chemistry, mathematics, as well as condensed matter physics and chemistry of materials, basic tools for quantitative modeling of the behavior of materials, which is the the subject of the postgraduate step, which is centered on the science and technology of materials with reference to the thermodynamic and transport properties, physical, chemical, mechanical, thermal, electrical and magnetic properties and the study of the technologies of ceramic materials , metals, polymers and composite.
More generally, the graduate will have in-depth the methodological and operational aspects of the basic sciences and engineering sciences .