Chemical Engineering has a rich past and a bright future. The new millenium are reshaping the structure of Chemical Engineering career and the department is augmenting its undergraduate program and graduate research activities in parallel in order to prepare its graduates to the market of the future. Chemical Engineering graduates at all levels will continue to find career opportunities at the established Turkish chemical industries like petrochemicals, drugs, sugar, cement, pulp and paper as well as in emerging new technologies such as biotechnology, material science and computer aided design and control of manufacturing processes.

There are several major research topics currently under study in the Chemical Engineering Department of METU. They may be broadly categorized as follows: studies related to heat, mass and momentum transfer, process design, modeling and control, radiative heat transfer, reaction kinetics and catalysis, material science including polymers, zeolites, nuclear materials, biological materials, and energy related subjects such as coal combustion, liquid fuels and energy economy in process industries.

The Department has the following research facilities and laboratories:

1) Basic Measurements Laboratory: Research and teaching equipment such as conductvitimeters, pH meters, spectrophotometers, gas chromatographs used to carry out undergraduate experiments and graduate research in applied physical chemistry, kinetics, chemical and physical equilibria.

2) Unit Operations Laboratory: This laboratory is used for activities of undergraduate laboratory courses, aimed to help students to develop skills for accurate and reliable collection, reduction and evaluation of experimental data on unit operations equipment and to help students to reinforce their knowledge about unit operation courses and to compare the actual performance of the equipment with the theoretical principles covered in related courses. The experiments performed are; fluid flow, pressure drop characteristics of a packed column, fluidization, unsteady state heat conduction, agitated tank heater, double-pipe heat exchanger, gas absorption, distillation cooling tower, spray drying, thin film evaporation, size reduction and filtration. Pilot scale research is also carried out in this labaratory.

3) Process Control Laboratory: Experimental work relating to process control is carried out in this laboratory. The experiments that can be performed in this laboratory are: Level Control , Flow Control, Pressure Control, Pulse Testing, Control-loop Tuning and Temperature Control.

4) Computer Laboratories: There are two computer rooms (22PC each) accessible by graduate and undergraduate students and one computer room (5 PC) for only graduate students. An IBM Risc/6000 Model 530 workstation running AIX 3.2 is networked to student laboratory PCs. The IBM Risc/6000 Workstation runs chemical engineering design packages used in undergraduate teaching and graduate research.

5) Central Instrumental Analysis Laboratory: The main function of this laboratory is to provide support for research activities pursued in the department and for undergraduate experiments. The chemical analysis and material characterization equipment involve an X-ray diffractometer, a thermal analysis system (TGA, DTA, DSC, TMA), a dual channel gas chromatograph, a high performance liquid chromatograph, an infrared spectrophotometer, an ultraviolet and visible spectrophotometer, an atomic absorption spectrophotometer, mercury porosimeter, computerized N2 and CO2 surface area analyzer, Helium pycnometer and several other analysis equipment.

6) Chemical Reaction Engineering Laboratory: This laboratory is equipped with homogeneous and heterogeneous reaction systems, high pressure reaction and extraction equipment, chemical vapor deposition system and analysis equipment such as Fourier Transform, Infrared Spectrometer, Gas Chromatographs. The laboratory has also access to mercury porositmeter, surface area analyzer; pycnometer; X ray diffractometer and other equipment in the Central Instrumental Analysis Laboratory.

7) Fuel and Petroleum Laboratory : This laboratory is equipped with instruments for testing and characterization of gaseous, liquid and solid fuels, crude oil and petroleum derivatives. Some of the equipments are elemental analyzer, bomb calorimeter, sulfur determination apparatus, standard equipment for fire and flash points, automatic distillation equipment, viscometers, and centrifuges furnaces.

8) Polymer Laboratory: This laboratory supports research in polymer studies. The equipment involved are; rheometer, universal testing machine, thin film forming apparatus, viscometers and access to thermal analysis equipment.

9) Biotechnology Laboratory: This laboratory includes equipment such as incubator, autoclave, fermenter, shakers, thermostats to support undergraduate and graduate studies in the related areas.