This book is an outgrowth of the author's teaching experience of a course on Introduction to Chemical Engineering to the first-year chemical engineering students of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. The book serves to introduce the students to the role of a chemical engineer in society. In addition to the classical industries, the role of chemical engineers in several esoteric areas such as semiconductor processing and biomedical engineering is discussed. Besides highlighting the principles and processes of chemical engineering, the book shows how chemical engineering concepts from the basic sciences and economics are used to seek solutions to engineering problems.

The book is rich in examples of innovative solutions found to problems faced in chemical industry. It includes a wide spectrum of topics, selected from the industrial interactions of the author. It encourages the student to see the similarities in the concepts which govern apparently dissimilar examples. It introduces various concepts, using both physical and mathematical bases, to facilitate the understanding of difficult processes such as the scale-up process.

The book contains several case studies on safety, ethics and environ-mental issues in chemical process industries.