India is undergoing significant transformation and realignment on a global scale across various sectors, including infrastructure, industries, environment, energy, and economy. Chemical engineering is one of the disciplines that is leading and shaping this transformation at the forefront.
Chemical engineers play a vital role in diverse industries as petroleum and petrochemicals, energy, power generation including ultra-mega power plants, coal-bed methane, combined gas cycle plants and nuclear power, defense, mining and minerals including steel and aluminium, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, nanotechnology, cement, fertilizers, textiles, leather, food and agro-based technologies, polymers, and environmental engineering. Chemical engineering is the broadest branch of engineering, that trains professionals to design, manufacture, operate and control processes of such diversity.
In this context, the demand for qualified professional chemical engineers to propel the growth of the industry and shape the contours of Indian economy is on the rise. The Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science(CEMS), started its Chemical Engineering B.Tech program from June 2007 with a sanctioned strength of 60. The undergraduate(B. Tech) program offered in Chemical Engineering at the Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham has a curriculum of global standards reviewed every 4 years by expert stakeholders from Industry, Alumni and Academia. The curriculum focusses on the fundamentals, the breadth of the discipline, and the necessary flexibility in being able to apply the fundamentals in widely varying contexts.
The department started its Chemical Engineering B.Tech program from June 2007 with a sanctioned strength of 60. The department offers specialized elective verticals for students such as Process Data Analytics & Artificial Intelligence and Environment & Sustainability.
The Department has consistently prioritized strong partnerships with industries to enhance the quality of education and research. One notable initiative is the Industrial Piping and Pipeline Engineering course offered in collaboration with L&T Edutech, which equips sixth-semester students with industry-relevant knowledge and skills. With 88% of the faculty having a PhD degree, and another 12% actively pursuing their PhD, the students get to learn from well qualified and experienced staff.
The students learn hands-on engineering skills in excellent labs and workshops. They also use the excellent library facilities and computing facilities in the campus and have access to seven state-of-the-art research facilities available in the department. Amrita School of Engineering and the department have excellent placement records for the graduating students. Nearly 25% of our students go abroad every year for higher studies. Students have been placed in top notch companies like Honeywell, Saint Gobain, Renault Nissan, VA Tech WABAG, L&T, UHP Technologies, Tata Electronics, Reliance, Gulf Asia, Chemplast Sanmar etc.
The Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science offers a two-year, thesis-based Masters program in Materials Science and Engineering. The program, established in 2015, is part of the department’s activities in the Center of Excellence in Advanced Materials and Green Technologies. The sanctioned strength for the program is 18 per batch and the program is approved by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).
The program is designed to produce graduates that can apply fundamental knowledge of mathematics, physics & chemistry of materials, and statistics, to model and solve problems related to design, synthesis, performance enhancement, and optimization of materials. With a strong focus on developing research skills among the students, in frontier areas, the program includes educational components that would make the graduates suited to, and employable in, industrial, government R&D, and academic settings, spanning diverse areas such as electronics & communications, energy, chemicals, medicine, and transportation. Alumni have been placed in companies such as Syngene (Biocon), GE, Gharda Chemicals, Hannon Automotive Systems, SFO Technologies, Next Big Innovation Labs, Element India and more, and have gone for PhD in IIT Madras, ARCI, Hyderabad, Martin Luther University, Canada and TU Eindhoven, Netherlands
The department strives for a passionate and committed drive towards continuous improvement in
To be recognized nationally and internationally for excellence in teaching and research in chemical engineering & materials science, integrated with, and practicing, social responsibility and value systems.
The Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science fosters interdisciplinary research through the thematic Center of Excellence in Advanced Materials and Green Technologies. Researchers involved are from diverse backgrounds including Chemical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Chemistry, Physics, Nanoscience and Technology, Polymer Engineering, Civil Engineering, Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Biopharmaceutical Technology, and more.
Through the Center, the department has established a strong research track record with projects funded from the major government agencies (such as DST, ANRF, DRDO, BRNS, ISRO), international agencies (Innovate UK with Durham University) and industries from India (HPCL, IOCL, GAIL, HEB, V-Guard, Pricol, Roots India, Cheenu Saltern) and abroad (LAM Research, Australian Mines and Technology Innovation Institute).
The department and the Center have been awarded the DST-FIST grant and funding from the Ministry of Education (then MHRD). Through these and support from Amrita, the Center hosts the Major Analytical Instrumentation Facility of Amrita’s Coimbatore Campus.
The department and the Center have 2 post-doctoral fellows, 43 full-time PhD scholars, and 17 part-time PhD scholars pursuing their research. Research activities in the Center broadly fall under three thematic areas: