Materials Concentration

This concentration provides a mechanism to give students credit for their focused study in materials on their transcripts. Extending this opportunity to students is valuable to them because of growing industrial interest in these areas of chemical engineering.

In South Jersey, there are a number of local industries, such as Solvay Solexis, Metrologic, DuPont, and VWR Scientific, whose success is based on the application of materials science. Within the region, there are only a limited number of schools that can supply qualified people to meet the needs of their labor force. By providing skilled graduates, this project will ensure that these companies can meet these needs and allow them to expand their enterprises. The local economy has an ever-increasing pressure for well-trained technicians, scientists, and engineers.

Materials science is inherently multi-disciplinary, requiring of its practitioners a broad range of knowledge and a variety of skills. Students in the proposed program will be able to follow the complete cycle of materials science from concept to research design to synthesis, to measurement of and explanation for the physical properties of the material to successful application. Coupled with the organization of learning for chemical engineering students within the program comes a distinct and strong effort to motivate students to pursue careers in materials research. Ultimately, these efforts should help us retain a diverse pool of talented students in New Jersey instead of being lost to out-of-state institutions.

This concentration is a cohesive set of courses that focus on materials within chemical engineering. To obtain this concentration in materials, at least 12 semester hours of credit are required. The requirements to earn a concentration in materials are as follows:

Course Credits  12 s.h.

In order to earn the concentration in materials, students can earn four credits by working on an approved materials project in 2 semesters of Junior/Senior Engineering Clinic. These projects can be housed in any of the four engineering disciplines, but must be approved by the Chemical Engineering faculty as having substantial materials content. Note that students can also fulfill the project requirement through independent study on materials-related projects (Independent Study in Engineering ENGR01.391).

Students earn the remaining six credits towards the concentration by taking one elective from each of the following lists. In order to underscore the diverse applications and multi-disciplinary nature of materials science, we will require students to take one chemistry or chemical engineering elective, and one materials elective outside of chemical engineering. Note that a chemistry course can be used to fulfill either requirement, but no one course can be used to fulfill both. Alternative courses to that given below must be approved by the concentration advisor.

Approved Materials Electives from ChE or Chemistry 

Approved Materials Electives from outside Chemical Engineering 

Faculty in chemical engineering and throughout the College routinely manage Junior/Senior Engineering Clinic projects in materials.

The following is a list of Junior/Senior Clinic projects that would be acceptable for this concentration: