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Verfahrenstechnik International
Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering
at Rutgers University
Rutgers University, which was
founded in 1766, is the eight-oldest
and one of the most prestigious
state universities in the USA. Its
location in close proximity to New
York City and to most of the
biotechnological, pharmaceutical
and chemical companies in the US
makes it ideally suited for a highprofile
chemical and biochemical
engineering program. The Chemical
and Biochemical Engineering (CBE)
Department at Rutgers University
is a leader in research and teaching
and is among the top educational
institutions. Since its inception in
1962, the department has become
one of the fastest rising chemical
engineering programs in the nation.
Since the early 1990’s, the
department has grown
tremendously, adding twelve new
faculty in strategic areas of
importance, and has witnessed over
graduate students enrolled in the
program.
Graduate Research activities are
carried out in a variety of traditional
and frontier areas of chemical and
biochemical engineering, where the
department has a particularly
strong reputation for its
bioengineering, pharmaceutical and
reaction engineering research program.
In addition to individually
defined faculty-student Ph.D.
projects, the CBE offers unique
programs in areas with an
interdisciplinary flavor, a result of
our strong collaborative efforts and
multidisciplinary approaches. The
following provides a brief
description of each of the
integrative programs:
2 - IGERT in
Nanopharma-ceuticals:
The program focuses on the
development of next generation
state-of-the-art drug products.
Nanotechnology-based drug
delivery and drug-products hold
enormous promise for increasing
the pharmaceutical development
toolbox. Nanotechnology can
dramatically enhance the
dissolution properties of drugs,
both by increasing the amount of
surface area available for
interfacial transport, and by making
it possible to incorporate
functionalized, tissue-specific drugbearing
nanoparticles into targeted
delivery devices. Chemical
Engineers are ideally suited to
contribute to this important and
exciting area.
$6 million of spending on
renovations and modernizations.
Currently sixteen professors teach
in the department in various areas,
such as genomic engineering,
nanotechnology, pharmaceutical
and tissue engineering, separations,
granular flows, molecular modeling,
as well as reaction and process
systems engineering. The
department serves a steadily
growing number of highly
motivated and talented graduate
and undergraduate students. Since
1964, 1,752 bachelor degrees, 433
master degrees and 195 Ph.D.
degrees have been awarded.
There are a total of about 130
undergraduates (58 sophomores,
36 juniors and 36 seniors) and 73
Picture: TEM images of nano silica
particles (about 16 nm) coated with
biocompatible polymer. Zero loss image
showing a coated agglomerate (left),
EELS map of silicon indicating the core
particles (middle), EELS map of carbon
indicating the presence of polymer
coating (right)
1 - IGERT in Engineered
Biointerfaces:
The program focuses on developing
a generation of scientists and
engineers to become experts
at the integrative synthesis
and analysis of biological
interfaces. The integrative
philosophy requires the combined
application of advances in
molecular/cellular biology; complex
materials; and micro/
nanotechnology, which will impact
the ultimate development of
technologies underlying biosensors,
cell-therapies, implant materials,
and gene engineering.
3-Rutgers Catalyst
Science and Engineering
Consortium:
While a large segment of the US
industry, including the petroleum,
chemical, pharmaceutical,
chemical, automotive, and energy
industries makes and/or uses
catalysts, currently there is no
academic program focusing on the
operations required to make stateof-the-art
catalytic materials. Thus,
catalyst manufacturing processes
are often designed relying on
empiricism, leading to uncertain/
sub-optimal processes, decreased
quality, and increased cost.
Figure: Left: Oxygen concentration field
around a bubble rising in the vortexshedding
(obtained by LIF, Middle: DNS
stream traces. Right: Numerically
obtained dissolved oxygen
concentration.
www.vt-verein.at