Research

“What does society need; what are the desirable outcomes and how can chemical engineers work in partnership with others to make it happen?”                                                     (Chemical Engineering Matters, p.5, IChemE, 2014)

The areas of research interest to Process & Chemical Engineering at UCC cohere readily with both local (process industry and societal) imperatives and broader contemporary professional disciplinary goals as articulated by the professional institution, the Institution of Chemical Engineers (though their ‘Chemical Engineering Roadmap’ (IChemE, 2007), and most recently in their ‘Chemical Engineering Matters’ policy document (IChemE 2012, 2014 (2^nd ed.)). These are demonstrated in the figure below, which maps UCC Process & Chemical activity (indicated by a smiley icon) onto respective professional disciplinary imperatives as identified by IChemE. 

UCC Process & Chemical Engineering and contemporary Chemical Engineering research imperatives (IChemE, 2012)

Specifically, Process & Chemical research interests at UCC lie in the three broad (and often overlapping) domains (pillars) of:

• FOOD & DRINK
• PHARMACEUTICAL & BIOPHARMACEUTICAL 
• SOCIETAL WELLBEING

Within these domains, research interests of staff extend to the following specific cross cutting areas:

• Particle and Powder Science/Technology
• Process Modelling & Optimisation
• Quality by Design in the Process Industries
• Scholarship of Engineering Education
• Shelf Life and Packaging
• Sustainability
• Trans- and Multidisciplinarity and Collaboration 

This research landscape is graphically represented by an analogous diagram in the figure below, whereby the specific research interests cross cut disciplinary research pillar domains, which in turn may ultimately feed into (as with the IChemE diagram) overall enhanced ‘Quality of life’, a key contemporary imperative for chemical, and indeed all, engineers.