First Hull chemeng master’s students graduate

THE first chemical engineering master’s students have graduated from the University of Hull, UK.

It is a milestone for Hull, which set up its new BEng and MEng courses in chemical engineering in 2012, in response to growing demand. Hull is at the heart of the UK’s so-called “Energy Estuary”, the River Humber estuary, with its clusters of chemical and process, energy, and renewables firms, so the university is ideally placed to take advantage of these. There were just 14 undergraduates in the first cohort, who graduated with with a BEng last year, with six of those now attaining their master’s degrees. Over the course of the past four years, the course has grown in popularity and reputation, with 120 expected to start in September.

IChemE Fellow Philip Rubini, head of chemical engineering at Hull, says that the ambition is for Hull to be the main supplier of chemical and process engineers to the Humber region, with the students benefiting from the proximity to industry, with first-hand experience at companies like BP Acetyls Europe, Cristal, Croda, Crown Paints, Cofely Fabricom GDF Suez, GASSCO and Vivergo.

“The Humber has one of the highest concentrations of chemical and process industries in the country,” said Rubini. “Our students get hands-on experience of chemical and process equipment at the Centre for the Assessment of Technical Competency (CATCH) – one of the country’s leading, industry-led training facilities for the process, energy and renewable industries. We are probably the only university that has access to facilities of this sort.”

The course was developed in collaboration with IChemE to ensure that it meets the requirements for getting Chartered, and is a collaboration between the school of engineering and the department of chemistry. Master’s students spend their penultimate year on an industrial placement or at a partner institution in Europe, Asia, North America or Australia, with a focussed research project in their final year.