ACADEMIC PROGRAMMES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
1. Overview of the department
2. Admission Requirements for the Postgraduate Programmes
3. Bachelor of Engineering Programme
Click here to see the undergraduate programme details.
4. Master of Engineering Programme
5. Doctor of Philosophy Programme
6. Postgraduate Course Synopsis
1. OVERVIEW OF DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
The Department of Chemical Engineering at Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, is committed to producing highly competent engineers equipped with the theoretical knowledge, practical skills, and innovative mindset required to excel in today’s global engineering landscape. The department offers a robust academic program that blends foundational courses in chemistry, physics, biology, and mathematics with advanced engineering subjects such as thermodynamics, transport phenomena, reaction engineering, separation processes, and process design and control. The academic structure is built on a dynamic integration of classroom-based theoretical learning, hands-on laboratory experiments, and intensive workshop training. Students are further exposed to real-life engineering environments through well-coordinated industrial training schemes and research-based projects that encourage critical thinking, innovation, and problem-solving. These experiences prepare students to address complex challenges in energy, sustainability, biotechnology, environmental protection, and material science. To support holistic development, the department actively promotes student participation in extracurricular activities such as engineering innovation clubs, technical competitions, industrial visits, entrepreneurship programs, and professional networking events. These initiatives are aimed at building leadership, communication, teamwork, and professional ethics—ensuring that graduates are not only technically sound but also well-rounded individuals capable of making meaningful contributions on both national and global stages. With a dedicated team of academic and technical staff, modern facilities, and a student-focused learning environment, the Department of Chemical Engineering remains a hub for nurturing future-ready engineers and innovators.
2. ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS
To be eligible for admission to the PG programme of the department, candidate must have the basic UME requirements. English language, Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics at credit level are compulsory for Chemical Engineering postgraduate students, Plus one other relevant subject at credit level specific to Engineering.
Masters Degree(M.ENG)
To be eligible for admission to the Master’s of Engineering degree programme, candidates must:
i. Be graduates of this University or any other University in Nigeria recognized by senate and shall have obtained a first degree with at least a second class honours 2.5 0n 5.00 point scale or 2.0 on 4.00 point scale.
ii. Possession of first degree with third class honours from a recognized University and at least (3.50) at postgraduate diploma in a relevant field or
iii. Possess HND with at least lower credit (3.50) plus at least an upper credit at postgraduate diploma (3.50) in a relevant field from a recognized institution or
iv. Any other certificate or qualification that may be acceptable to senate.
Doctor of philosophy Degree (Ph.D)
To be eligible for admission to the Doctorate of Philosophy degree programme, a candidate shall have obtained a master’s degree which includes course work and research from this University or any other recognized University by Senate in relevant discipline with CGPA of 3.50 on 5.00 point scale or 3.00 on 4.00 point scale or 60%.
3. COURSE OUTLINE
M.ENG PROGRAMME
FIRST SEMESTER
Course Code Course Title Units Status LH PH
CHE 800 Thesis 6 C 180
CHE 811 Advanced Mass Transfer 2 C 30 –
CHE 812 Catalysis and Kinetics 2 C 30 –
CHE 813 Advanced Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics 2 C 30 –
CHE 814 Advanced Chemical Engineering Analysis 3 C 30 –
CHE 816 Advanced Biochemical Engineering 3 E 30 –
CHE 817 Advanced Environmental Engineering 3 E 30 –
CHE 818 Numerical Methods Applied to Chemical Engineering 3 E 30 –
CHE 819 Advanced Reservoir Analysis 3 E 30 –
Total 23 210 –
SECOND SEMESTER
Course Code Course Title Units Status LH PH
CHE 801 Seminar 2 C 45 –
CHE 821 Advanced Heat Transfer 3 C 45 –
CHE 822 Advanced Process Dynamics, Control and Optimization 3 C 45 –
CHE 823 Advanced Process Design and Economics 3 C 45 –
CHE 825 Polymer Engineering 3 E 45 –
CHE 826 Petroleum Technology 3 E 45 –
CHE 827 Renewable Energy 3 E 45 –
Total 20 270 –
*E= Elective(2 + 2), *C= Core
4. PhD PROGRAMME
FIRST SEMESTER
Course Code Course Title Units Status LH PH
CHE 911 Science and Research Methodology 3 C 45 –
CHE 912 Catalysis and Chemical Reaction 3 C 45 –
CHE 913 Thermodynamics and Molar Computation 3 C 45 240
CHE 900 PhD Dissertation 12 C 45
Total 21 180 240
SECOND SEMESTER
Course Code Course Title Units Status LH PH
CHE 901 Seminar 2 C 30 –
CHE 921 Analysis of Transport Processes 3 C 45 –
CHE 922 Process System Design and Simulations 3 C 45 –
CHE 923 Numerical Method in Chemical Engineering 3 C 45 –
Total 11 165 –
*C = Core
5. COURSE SYNOPSIS
Master of Engineering M.Eng.
CHE 811 Advanced Mass Transfer (2 Units)
Derivation and application of Navier Stokes equation: velocity profiles in laminar and turbulent flows. Universal velocity profile. Macromolecular hydrodynamics and non-Newtonian fluids.Thermal and concentration boundary layers. Differential equations for transfer processes and their applications.Mass transfer: Fick’s law, Diffusion in stationary media, diffusion of vapors, additively of resistances, Mass transfer with chemical reaction, interfacial phenomena. Compressible flow: Normal short waves, flow in pipes and nozzles. Coding Tower designs psychometric charts, estimation of tower.
CHE 812 Advanced Catalysis and Kinetics (2 units)
Kinetics and thermodynamics of manufacture of catalyst, selection of reactor technology for catalyst synthesis, shape-selective catalysis, homogeneous catalysis, autocatalysis, heterogeneous catalysis, catalyst recycling, catalytic processes associated with clean energy, fine chemicals, and environmental technology,
CHE 813 Advanced Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics (2 units)
Basic postulates of classical thermodynamics. Application of transient open and closed systems. Criteria of stability and equilibria. Thermodynamics properties of pure materials and mixture with estimation and correlating techniques. Chemical equilibria. Phase stability and immiscibility. Intermolecular forces including dipole, induced dipole, and dipole-dipole moments. Application of intermolecular force theories to the problems of predicting equilibrium and transport properties of gases and liquid. Review of modern theories of liquid structures
CHE 814 Advanced Chemical Engineering Analysis (3 units)
Matrix formulation of Chemical Engineering problems with examples from areas such as distillation, gas absorption, and reaction engineering. Analytical and numerical methods of solutions to stiff differential equations, differential-algebraic equation systems (DAE), high index DAEs, partial differential-algebraic (PDAE) systems, parameter estimation and design of experiment. Hyperbolic and parabolic systems. Methods of characteristics. Application to flow and diffusional processes. Wave responses, more difficult boundary value problem. Advance application of laplace transforms. Variational techniques in Chemical Engineering with examples from transport processes. Statistical methods in Chemical Engineering experimentation. Difference Equations and Regressions. Applications of commercial software such as MATLAB, HYSYS, and ASPEN.
CHE 815 Pre-data Research Seminar (3 unit)
Students are expected to prepare and present a review and proposal for evaluation at a seminar on any selected topic of current research in any area of specialization of chemical engineering.
CHE 816 Advanced Biochemical Engineering (3 units)
Growth and non-growth associated fermentation systems. Biochemical reactor and fermentor design. Kinetics in chemostat and other fermentor configurations. Fermentor operation and control. Development of cellulosic and hydrocarbons-based materials by microbes (moulds, yeast, algae, and bacteria). Homogeneous and immobilized enzymes. Modeling of fermentation systems. Biological waste treatment technology.
CHE 817 Environmental Engineering (3 Units)
Philosophy of environmental pollution control, types of atmospheric transformations, role of solar radiation in atmospheric chemistry, gas phase chemical reaction pathway, transport and dispersion of air pollutants, environmental pollution modeling and prediction, control systems design for stationary sources, cleaner technology applications to major processes/industries, new trends in environmental management.
CHE 818 Numerical Methods Applied to Chemical Engineering (3 units)
Methods for solving linear equations, sets of nonlinear algebraic equations, ordinary differential equations, and differential-algebraic (DAE) equations. Probability theory and its use in physical modeling, statistical analysis of data and parameter estimation. The finite difference and finite element techniques for converting partial differential equations obtained from transport phenomenon to DAE equations. Use of these techniques is to be demonstrated in the MATLAB environment.
CHE 819 Advanced Reservoir Analysis (3 units)
Mathematical development and calculations of reservoir behavior and flow of oil, gas and water. Treatment of performance calculations for depletion gas cap, water, gravity and combination drives water recharge theory. Development and use of fluid displacement equations
CHE 821 Advanced Heat Transfer (2 units)
Conduction: the Fourier equation and application to composites medium, slab, cylinders, spheres, and through fins. Analytical and numerical solutions of steady and unsteady state conduction equations. Convection: principles of free and forced convection. Determination of film transfer coefficients, Heat exchanger design. General diffusion and convection equation- Navier Stoke’s equation, problems formulation and solution. Phase transformation: boiling, condensation, crystallization, heat transfer to multi-component fluids, drying. Radiative heat transfer and applications in furnaces and solar energy collectors, radiation mechanism of radioactive heat transfer, shape factors, heat exchange between radiating networks.
CHE 822 Advanced Process Dynamics and Control (2 units)
Plant-wide control using conventional controllers, characteristics and motivation for process control, basic control concepts (transfer functions, frequency response, bandwidth, poles, and zeroes), process modeling, heuristic rules for control structure selection, steady state disturbance rejection analysis (linear and non-linear). Controller tuner using Ziegler-Nichols, Cohen-coon, relay tuning, systematic refinement, level control. Advanced conventional control using feed forward, ration, cascade, gain-scheduling, input conditioning and decoupling. Methods for multi-variable controller design and analysis, loop shaping with singular values, robust stability, direct Nyquist array, dynamic matrix control (DMC), linear quadratic control (LQ), on-line state and parameter estimation, adaptive control, self-tuning regulators, inferential controllers, artificial neural networks in process control.
CHE 823 Process Design and Economics (2 units)
The design of process, case studies involving complex process suitable for computerization. Mathematical models of process flowsheets. Optimization techniques in design. Application of computer techniques to process synthesis analysis and simulation process. Advanced equipment analysis, troubleshooting problems, statistical analysis in design, environmental control and safety. Costs and cost estimation, profitability estimation, statistical method in costing. Cost benefit analysis. Public and private financing budgeting and cost control.
CHE 824 Research Projects (3 units)
Application of research techniques to solving current chemical engineering problems as directed by a supervisor. A pre data and post data seminars are expected to be presented before the final oral examination.
CHE 825 Polymer Engineering (2 units)
Polymerization mechanisms. Structure and properties of polymers including polymer modification, polymer reaction engineering, application of engineering principles to polymer processing operations, polymer viscoelasticity, mechanical properties of polymers.
CHE 826 Petroleum Technology (3 units)
Petroleum engineering: reservoir dynamics. Compressibility. Advanced petroleum geology. Production engineering designs. Surface operation secondary recovery including water and gas injection, in-situ combustion. Natural gas engineering gathering, liquefaction and storage, transportation and regasification processes. Hydrocarbon processing and petrochemicals: refinery processes, petroleum chemicals, unit operations in petrochemicals manufacture, lubrication.
CHE 827 Separation Processes for Biochemical Products. (3 units)
Fundamental principles of separation operations for the recovery of products from biological processes, membrane filtration, chromatography, centrifugation, cell disruption, extraction, and process design.
Ph.D Degree Programme
CHE 911: Science and Research Methodology (3 units)
Meaning and importance of Research- Types of Research- Selection and formulation or Research problem. Research design and hypothesis formulation–Literature review and critical analysis–Experimental and simulation techniques–Ethics in scientific research–Technical writing (proposals, journal papers, theses) –Presentation skills and academic publishing–Data visualization and software tools (e.g., Origin, LaTeX)
CHE 912: Catalysis and Chemical Reaction (3 units)
Kinetics of homogeneous and heterogeneous reactions, Catalysis and catalytic reactor design, Residence time distribution and non-ideal reactors, Mole and energy balances in reactors, Types of reactors: Batch, CSTR, PFR, semi-batch, Conversion, selectivity, and yield, Design equations for isothermal and non-isothermal systems, Reaction mechanisms and micro kinetics, Multi-phase reaction systems, Industrial applications and reactor modeling using software tools, Elementary and complex reaction mechanisms, Rate laws, reaction order, rate constants, Arrhenius equation and temperature dependence, Experimental methods for kinetic data collection, Parameter estimation and regression, Introduction to catalysis: homogeneous vs. heterogeneous, Surface chemistry and active sites, Adsorption isotherms (Langmuir, Freundlich), Turnover frequency and catalytic activity, Catalyst deactivation and regeneration, Design of catalytic reactors (fixed bed, fluidized bed, monolith), Effectiveness factor and Thiele modulus, Heat and mass transfer in catalytic systems, Reactor stability and dynamic behavior, Transport limitations (internal and external diffusion), Enzyme and bio-catalysis mechanisms, Organometallic and photocatalysis, Electrocatalysis and fuel cell reactions, Sensitivity analysis and uncertainty quantification.
CHE 913: Thermodynamics and Molar Computation (3 units)
First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics, Phase equilibria (VLE, LLE, SLE), Chemical reaction equilibria, Fugacity, activity, and chemical potential, Thermodynamic models and equations of state (e.g., Peng-Robinson, SRK), Statistical thermodynamics fundamental, Advanced mixture and separation thermodynamics, Molar volume, enthalpy, entropy, Gibbs free energy, Ideal and non-ideal gas models, Equations of State (EOS): van der Waals, Redlich-Kwong, Peng-Robinson, Soave; Departure functions and residual properties, Molar property estimation from EOS, Fugacity and fugacity coefficients, Vapor-liquid equilibrium (VLE): Raoult’s law, modified Raoult’s law, Activity coefficient models (Wilson, NRTL, UNIQUAC, UNIFAC), Phase stability and flash calculations, Solid-liquid, liquid-liquid, and gas-liquid equilibria, P-x-y, T-x-y diagrams and azeotrope prediction, Excess Gibbs energy and activity models, Partial molar properties and Gibbs-Duhem equation, Enthalpy and entropy of mixing, Thermodynamic consistency tests, Modeling non-ideal mixtures, Standard Gibbs energy and equilibrium constants, Reaction extent and Gibbs minimization, Equilibrium composition calculations, Pressure and temperature effects on equilibrium, Coupled phase and reaction equilibria • Molecular interpretation of thermodynamic properties, Partition functions and molecular energy levels. Connection between microscopic and macroscopic behavior, Applications to heat capacities, enthalpy, and entropy predictions, Numerical methods for thermodynamic integration and root finding, Phase equilibrium algorithms (e.g., Newton-Raphson, Rachford-Rice), EOS parameter estimation using regression, Use of computational tools: MATLAB, Python, Aspen Plus, REFPROP, Thermodynamic modeling in process simulators, Design of separation processes (distillation, extraction, absorption), Thermodynamics in energy systems and combustion, Supercritical fluids and phase behavior, Cryogenics and refrigeration cycles, Advanced materials (polymers, ionic liquids, electrolytes)
CHE 921: Analysis of Transport Processes (3 units)
Momentum transport (Navier-Stokes equations, laminar/turbulent flow), Energy transport (conduction, convection, radiation), Mass transport (diffusion, convection, dispersion), Boundary layer theory, Transport in multiphase systems, Non-Newtonian fluid dynamics, Solution methods (analytical and numerical), Transport processes and analogies (momentum, heat, mass), Continuum hypothesis and conservation laws, Vector and tensor mathematics for transport analysis, Constitutive equations: Newton’s law of viscosity, Fourier’s law, Fick’s law, Transport coefficients and molecular basis, Navier-Stokes equations: derivation and application, Unidirectional and fully developed flows, Creeping flow (Stokes flow) and lubrication theory, Boundary layer theory and laminar-turbulent transitions, Flow through porous media (Darcy’s law, Forchheimer’s correction), Dimensional analysis and Reynolds number regimes, Energy equation and thermal energy balance, Conduction: steady-state and transient (Fourier’s law, separation of variables), Convective heat transfer: boundary layers, Nusselt number correlations, Thermal radiation: blackbody radiation, view factors, radiative heat exchange, Coupled conduction-convection-radiation systems, Heat generation in fluids and solids, Species continuity equations, Molecular diffusion in gases, liquids, and solids, Multicomponent diffusion: Maxwell-Stefan equations, Convective mass transfer: Sherwood number, film and penetration theories, Interphase mass transfer: absorption, evaporation, and drying, Mass transfer in reactive systems and catalysis, Transport across interfaces (fluid-solid, gas-liquid, etc.), Particle-laden and non-Newtonian flows, Transport in microfluidic and nanoscale systems, Transport in biological systems and tissues
CHE 922: Process System Design and Simulations (3 units)
Scope and significance of process system design, Hierarchical approach to process synthesis (Douglas method), Role of simulation and optimization in process design, Process life cycle and design stages (conceptual, basic, detailed), Linear and nonlinear control theory, Dynamic modeling of chemical processes, PID tuning and frequency response, State-space and multivariable control (MIMO systems), Model Predictive Control (MPC), System identification and controller design, MATLAB/Simulink or other simulation tools, Building blocks: reactors, separators, heat exchangers, compressors, Mass and energy balance convergence, Thermodynamic property methods and phase behavior, Equipment specifications and process performance indicators. Use of simulation platforms: Aspen Plus, HYSYS, CHEMCAD.
CHE 923: Numerical Method in Chemical Engineering (3 units)
Linear algebra and vector spaces, Ordinary and partial differential equations, Numerical methods (finite difference, finite element), Optimization techniques (linear, nonlinear, dynamic programming), Eigenvalue problems, stability analysis, Applied statistics and data analysis for engineers, Use of software tools (e.g., MATLAB, Python) ,Sources and types of errors: round-off, truncation, convergence, Significant digits, condition numbers, and stability, Floating-point arithmetic and machine precision, Taylor series expansions and order of accuracy, Direct methods: Gauss elimination, LU decomposition, pivoting, Iterative methods: Jacobi, Gauss-Seidel, Successive Over-Relaxation (SOR), Sparse matrix techniques and banded systems, Eigenvalue problems and applications in reactor stability and vibrations, Root-finding algorithms: Bisection, Newton-Raphson, Secant methods, Systems of nonlinear equations, Convergence criteria and damping technique, Applications in phase equilibrium and nonlinear process models.
CHE 900: PhD Dissertation (12 Units)
The Ph.D. student is expected to select an interesting topic from his/her area of specialization. Successful study should make original contributions to knowledge and should contain at least three articles publishable in reputable journals; have extensive and up-to-date literature review; and demonstrate full understanding of the subject matter and answer all the questions satisfactorily during oral presentation. At least two seminars based on the thesis should be presented by each candidate before final examination
