Our Department ranks as number one in Canada for Chemical Engineering according to the U.S. News and World Best Global Universities.
The department's small class-sizes, engaging teaching practices, and hands-on learning in our state-of-the-art facilities empower our students to solve real-world problems.
The Department of Chemical Engineering is a vibrant center of collaborative research addressing some of the most pressing challenges in energy and materials. Our faculty members are engaged in a diverse array of research in areas such as machine learning and process systems engineering, CO2 capture and conversion, polymer engineering, renewable energy, synthetic biology, environmental remediation, and materials science that push the boundaries of innovation.
Check out this short presentation by one of our second year undergraduate students, talking about the undergraduate Chemical Engineering Program at UWaterloo!
Are you wondering what Chemical Engineering is? Check out our new animation!
Chemical Engineering Lab Tour
Join us for a tour of the Chemical Engineering undergraduate labs in the Douglas Wright Engineering Building at the University of Waterloo.
Find out more by exploring the programs, research and news stories on this site.
News
A greener future for personal hygiene products
A chemical engineering research group led by Professor Tizazu Mekonnen has developed an eco-friendly super absorbent hydrogel that could dramatically reduce the environmental impact of personal hygiene products like diapers, menstrual pads and tampons.
Unlike current products, which take centuries to break down, this new material degrades harmlessly in soil within three months.
In North America, billions of disposable diapers end up in landfills annually, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) taking up to 450 years to decompose.
Around 1.8 billion women menstruate monthly, and most single-use menstrual pads and tampons also end up in landfills. These products are about 90 per cent plastic and can take up to 500 years to break down, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.
Chemical engineering team excels in circular water economy challenge
A team of graduate students from the Department of Chemical Engineering earned an impressive second place in the WEF Technical Exhibition and Conference (WEFTEC).
The student team, supervised by Professor Sarah Meunier, first won the Water Environment Association of Ontario (WEAO) competition. The contest, a municipality that provides a current and relevant problem. After that the team, sponsored by WEAO moved on to a second-place win at WEFTEC.
WEFTEC is the largest water quality exhibition in North America, and they hold an annual international student competition. The University of Waterloo team, which included Joseph Wortman, Rosa Maria Castillo, Maryory Ocana and Jinxuan Zhang competed against students from universities from across North America in the new Circular Water Economy category.
The teams were tasked with optimizing a wastewater treatment plan in Barrie. One of the biggest real-world hurdles is that Barrie expects its population to double by 2051, but the treatment plant itself has no room to grow.
Leveraging synthetic biology to address the plastic waste crisis
Chemical engineering professors are taking on the problem of plastic waste in the environment by leveraging synthetic biology to turn plastic waste into valuable resources.
“We’re stepping out of our silos to advance sustainability,” says Professor Marc Aucoin. “The question is: can we use biology—or can we tune biology—to aid us in tackling plastic pollution?”
The answer may well be yes. The research group recently co-authored an overview of strategies to leverage synthetic biology, microbial engineering and engineering design to degrade and upcycle plastic waste.
Professor Christian Euler, Waterloo’s lead for the Center for Innovative Recycling and Circular Economy (CIRCLE) in a recent study is investigating whether feedstocks derived from plastic waste could provide the energy to drive carbon dioxide (CO₂) conversion.
Events
Graduate Seminar| Optimizing Experiments: From Data-Driven to Intrusive Model-based Methods , by Professor Alexander Dowling
The Chemical Engineering Department is hosting a special graduate lecture on Optimizing Experiments: From Data-Driven to Intrusive Model-Based Methods.
Battery Workforce Challenge Party
Battery Workforce Challenge party
PhD Thesis/Transport and Irreversible Retention of Hydrophobic Nanoparticles by Fluid-Fluid and Fluid-Solid Interfaces in Porous Media by Youssra Rahham
Thesis Title: Transport and Irreversible Retention of Hydrophobic Nanoparticles by Fluid-Fluid and Fluid-Solid Interfaces in Porous Media
Abstract:
Hydrophobic nanoparticle (NP) transport in porous media has implications for aquifer transport and retention of a wide range of contaminants that infiltrate water resources and threaten human health as well as aquatic environments. Comprehension of NP transport and interactions with hydrophobic surfaces and interfaces -given their ubiquity in porous aquifers- is essential for groundwater remediation from organic contaminants, toxic engineered NPs, and nanoplastics.
This research investigates the transport and attachment of hydrophobic NPs under varying physicochemical conditions in saturated and unsaturated porous media by integrating experimental observations across multiple scales, theoretical extended-DLVO predictions, and numerical modeling. A non-toxic, negatively-charged, hydrophobic model NP system synthesized from ethyl cellulose (EC), and exhaustively characterized for colloidal stability and interfacial interactions, was employed to systematically explore NP interactions with fluid-fluid and solid-fluid interfaces.
The upscaling capability of an advection-dispersion-retention continuum model was compared vis-à-vis a pore network model of irreversible NP attachment onto fluid interfaces in 3D columns packed with spherical glass beads, showing that the latter captures key pore-scale dynamics such as bypassed interfaces, slow-moving corner flows, and diffusion-dominated retention.
Transport experiments in 2D microfluidic pore networks confirm that the dynamics of NP retention in unsaturated porous media depend not only on the saturation of the non-wetting phase, but also on its connectivity and the accessibility of immobile fluid-fluid interfaces.