Master of Chemical Engineering (from 1-9-2010)

The current master program is organized in such a way that it gives attention to recent trends in academic and industrial research and anticipates developments in the short to medium term business prospects for the conversion industry. Conversion industry may be defined as the industry that converts natural resources into chemicals-based consumer products. As such, industries that produce petrochemicals, industrial catalysts, fuels, electricity, metals, ceramics, pharmaceuticals, food products, personal care and hygiene products, paper, plastics, adhesives, foams, coatings, and the like, can be considered as sectors of the conversion industry. Following several decades of cost reduction, technology optimization and business restructuring, this industry now focuses on product diversification and production of added-value specialty products. This requires that future chemical engineering graduates should be prepared for this new environment, and that former master programs needed to be restructured.

From the academic year 2010-2011 the Chemical Engineering Master program at the University of Groningen is organized according to a new structure that prepares students for this new environment. The overall program is focused on Product Technology (PT) and is conceptually split (Figure 1) into a “core program” (compulsory for every student and containing general PT courses) and subprograms according to the corresponding “product sector”. 

Figure 1. Schematic representation of the Master program 

Every course is intended for 5 ECTS (study points), the Internship for 15 ECTS and the Master Thesis for 50 ECTS. Students entering the Master (total duration of two years) follow in first instance (1^st year) the majority of the Core program (Table 1).

Table 1. Core program in the 1^st year of the Master.

 

In the core program most general elements for Product Technology are treated in the corresponding courses. At the end of the 1^st block ( in Table 1) a short seminar will be held by the Chemical Engineering staff members. In the seminar relevant examples of research projects will be discussed in order to give students a kaleidoscopic view of the different product sectors. As of the second block, students are expected to fill their optional space (6 courses in total) according to the product sector(s) of their choice. For every specialization (product sector) three courses are considered compulsory (in bold in Table 2) and five are suggested as possible choices (in italics in Table 2).  

Table 2. Optional and compulsory courses for the different specialization (product sectors).

 

Ideally a student should choose the product sector specialization in order to perform her/his Master Thesis research in the same application field. However, individual choices (thus not according to the structure given in Figure 1) are possible if a clear learning iter is detected and upon approval of the exams commission. The Master Thesis (50 ECTS) is on the 2^nd year program together with the remaining optional courses (10 ECTS in total). A student is allowed to start with his master Thesis research with a maximum of 25 ECTS to be still booked from the compulsory (core) and optional program.