About Us
The Department of Applied Chemistry, the first of this kind in Bangladesh , was established in 1967, and started functioning by opening the M.Sc. (Previous) course with an aim to develop knowledge on chemical technology in general. Professor Fazlul Halim Chowdhury was the founder Head of the Department. The Department became a full fledged teaching and research unit of the university in 1971 with the start of B. Sc. (Honours) course. In 1988, the department was renamed as Department of Applied Chemistry and Chemical Technology. Steady growth in the quality of teaching and research during the past 27 years has led the department in achieving a high national ranking .
Chemistry is one of the foundations of our modern civilization finding applications in a wide range of fields including electronic industry, medical science, cosmetics, textile, agricultural industries, energy and the environment. The objective of the Department of Applied Chemistry & Chemical Technology is to provide education and research from the fundamentals of Chemistry to the most recent fields of applied chemical science. The department provides training on the production of chemicals from experimental level to industrial scale of today's use and their safe handling, information literacy, experimental techniques and operation of analytical instruments. Consequently, students gain the ability not only to solve the specialized technological problems, but also to function effectively as a general chemical technologist after graduation. The department is active in producing chemists with technological specialization who are being employed in various chemical process industries at home and abroad.
Considering the need of the modern time the department focuses on four major branches. These are -
- Chemical Engineering and Environmental Chemistry
- Metallurgy, Corrosion and Materials Science
- Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Pharmaceutics
- Polymer Science and Petrochemicals
The B.Sc. (Eng.) courses in Applied Chemistry and Chemical Engineering consists of 31 theoretical courses (including six related courses) spread over a period of four academic years. There are 17 days’ practical examinations, 200 marks’ viva voce examinations and 125 marks’ inplant trainings distributed in four academic years. The Master of Science course is held in two groups: The general group (Group A) and the Thesis group (Group B). The Group A examination consists of 6 theoretical courses, 8 day’s practical examinations, viva voce and inplant training. Students of the Group B are more advanced and allowed to undertake research works in lieu of practical courses.
The Department has a library of its own. It has about 40 seat capacities. Books and journals of various disciplines are available here.
The department has 6 practical class laboratories namely Organic, Industrial, Physical, Chemical Engineering, Pharmaceutical and Polymer and almost a dozen of research laboratories.
10-20 day’s inplant training in different chemical process industries of the country is compulsory for both B.Sc. Eng. and Master’s students.
Researches on various fields are going on in the department. In the Chemical Engineering branch, the research fields are reaction engineering, catalysis, solvent extraction, non-conventional energy sources, environmental pollution control and technology etc. In the metallurgical branch, corrosion inhibition, electroplating, production of new materials, pyro- and hydrometallurgical researches are major research areas. In the pharmaceutical branch, isolation, characterization, computational design and syntheses of new organic compounds of pharmaceutical importance are going on besides researches on natural products, lipid and protein technology. In the Polymer branch, researches on natural polymer: modification, degradation, dyeing properties etc., extraction, isolation, purification and application of natural dyes, chemical synthesis and characterization of polymers are going on.