Laboratory and Facilities

The Department of Chemical Engineering hosts several state-of-the-art equipments in its various laboratories, dedicated both to research work and to student education.

Name of Research Laboratory	Location	Floor Area (sq. m.)	Description	Features, Equipment & Software
Biochemical Process Laboratory	Science & Technology Research Center – Room 216	95.30	The Biochemical Process Laboratory is dedicated for research activities on fermentation processes, culturing of biological cells, microbiological techniques and other research work in biochemistry and biology, where conventional chemical engineering meets the rapidly evolving discoveries in biotechnology.	Rapid Drying Oven Fermentation Reactor Fume Hood Laminar Flow Hood Autoclave Muffle Furnace Water Distillation Unit Water Demineralizer Unit Kjeldahl Extraction Apparatus Compound Microscope Centrifuge Orbital Shaker Shaking Water Bath Sonicator
Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering Laboratory 1	Science & Technology Research Center – Room 107B	17.04	The Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering Laboratory 1 serves as the “wet” laboratory for the Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering group, where all decellularization experiments are conducted. It also serves as the venue for the preparation of the polymer solutions used during electrospinning and 3D bioprinting in the Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering Laboratory 2.	Fume hood Bath type sonicator Distillation column Peristaltic pumps Decellularization chamber Touch Screen Viscometer Analytical Balance Magnetic Stirrer w/ Hot Plate
Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering Laboratory 2	Science & Technology Research Center – Room 214	32.00	The Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering Laboratory 2 serves as the “dry” laboratory of the Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering group. The facility is primarily used to fabricate engineered tissue scaffolds from polymeric biomaterials. The laboratory currently houses the country’s most advanced rapid biofabrication machines, namely the eleectrospinner and 3D bioprinter.	Multi Nozzle Electrospinning Machine 3D Bioprinter CATIA V6 Universal Biomaterials Testing Machine
ChE Research Laboratory	Velasco Hall – Room 411 & Room 412	131.93	A variety of research activities are conducted in the ChE Research Laboratory, representing the diverse and dynamic scientific interests of the department’s faculty members. Research topics include, but are not limited to, biofuels, carbon capture, carbon nanotubes production, biological nutrient removal, biogas production, fermentation, and essential oil extraction.	Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (AAS) Rotary Evaporator Gas Chromatograph (GC) Total Organic Carbon (TOC) Analyzer Centrifuge Shaking Incubator Overhead Stirring Apparatus Water Distillation Unit Water Deionizer Unit Solarimeter
Energy Laboratory	Science & Technology Research Center – Room 107	46.14	The Energy Laboratory provides the venue for research on energy extraction from renewable and non-renewable resources by gasification, pyrolysis, and combustion, including clean coal technology research and the transesterification of different feedstock for the production of biodiesel.	Thermal Gravimetric Analyzer (TGA) Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC) Furnace Fume Hood
Environmental Engineering Laboratory	Science & Technology Research Center – Room 219	63.00	The Environmental Engineering Laboratory supports the environmental research thrust of the department. Research topics include water and wastewater treatment, solid waste management, hazardous waste treatment, and other environmental remediation processes.	Jar Testing Apparatus Fume Hood Drying Oven Sonicator Temperature Regulated Water Bath Shaking Incubator Rotary drum mixer Vortex Mixer DO Meter pH Meter
Instrumentation Room	Science & Technology Research Center – Room 215 & Room 217	63.68	The Instrumentation Room houses some of the sophisticated equipment of the Department of Chemical Engineering. The facility serves as the center for instrumental analysis, where students and researchers can bring their samples for high-level analysis.	Gas Chromatographs (ECD, TCD, FID) Gas Chromatograph – Mass Spectrometer (GC/MS) High Performance Liquid Chromatograph (HPLC) UV-Vis Spectrophotometer Centrifuge Isolated Analytical Balance Room
Process Control and Simulation Laboratory	Velasco Hall – Room 101	67.48	Being an instructional laboratory, students are exposed to experiments in process control demonstrating the principles of transfer functions, electronic controllers (e.g. PID), controller tuning, and their typical industrial applications. In addition to bench-scale process apparatuses, specialized process modelling software are also available in this laboratory.	Various Armfield® Multifunction Process Control Teaching Systems OSK® Temperature Control Plant Data Acquisition Systems from National Instruments Taylor® Water Level Control Demonstration Unit SUPERPRO DESIGNER (flow sheet simulation software) HYPER LINGO (optimization software) UniSim Design (software for process design and simulation)
Unit Operations Laboratory	Velasco Hall – Room 102 & Miguel Hall – Ground Floor	107.25 (Velasco Hall) + 36.00 (Miguel Hall)	The Unit Operations Laboratory serves the needs of undergraduate students in chemical engineering. Typical experiments cover topics in fluid mechanics (such as pump characteristics and fluid agitation), heat transfer (such as radiation), mass transfer operations (such as diffusivities, binary distillation, gas absorption, humidification, drying, adsorption), mechanical separation (such as filtration, screening, size reduction), and other related topics like reaction engineering (such as plug flow or tubular reactor). In addition, routine sample preparation and separation, as part of preliminary procedures in research, are often performed here, such as size reduction, centrifugation, drying, elevated heating, sieving and weighing, and catalyst preparation.	CSTR Plug Flow Reactor Cooling Tower Packed Column Gas Absorption Unit Distillation Unit Plate and Frame Filtration Unit Leaf Filtration Unit Ion Exchange Unit Thermal Radiation Equipment Tray Dryer Muffle Furnace Drying Oven Fume Hood Series-Parallel Centrifugal Pumps Set-up Liquid-Solid Fluidization Apparatus Unsteady State Liquid Flow Apparatus Single-Effect Steam-Jacketed Evaporator Single and Double Effect Evaporator System Sieve Shaker Centrifuge Wiley Mill Ball Mill and Jaw Crusher Liquid Agitation and Mixing Unit

Distillation Equipment with Rectification
Used to perform distillation experiments, with or without reflux, using a sieved or packed column, under ambient pressure or under vacuum.Location: Velasco Building 102-A

Multifunction Process Control Teaching System
(Armfield PCT40)
Used to study wide range of process control techniques in a simple basic unit, including temperature measurement and flow control.Location: Velasco Building 101

Instrumentation Room
Houses several equipment used for research in Chemical Engineering, such as the GC-ECD and the HPLCLocation: STRC 215 and STRC 217

Thermogravimetric Analyzer (TGA-Q50)
Measures mass changes and rate of weight change under controlled temperature and atmosphere. Used for pyrolysis, gasification and combustion studies of various materials.Location: STRC 215 and STRC 217