Chemical Engineering
The education of chemical engineers and chemists has a long-standing tradition in Hungary. Hungary’s earliest chemistry department was established in 1763 at the Selmecbánya Mining School, the first school to offer practical instruction in the chemical laboratory. In 1769, a common department for chemistry and botany was founded at the University of Nagyszombat, which was resettled to Buda in 1777 and later to Pest. In 1846, the Department of General and Technical Chemistry was founded at Joseph II Industrial School, one of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics’s predecessor institutions. Education of chemical engineers, separate from that of mechanical and civil engineers, reaches back to the 1863/64 academic year.
Royal Joseph Polytechnic became a technical university in 1871. The academic freedom introduced by this university-level status allowed students to freely select the subjects they wished to study. However, the need for an interrelated, logical sequence of subjects soon became evident, so in 1892 a compulsory curriculum and timetable was introduced. From the foundation of the Faculty until 1948, only a four-year-term of studies, without specialisations, was offered. Following the educational reforms of 1948, the departments of Inorganic Chemical Technology, Organic Chemical Technology, and Agricultural and Food Chemistry were established. The Inorganic Chemical Technology Department is no longer a part of the Faculty because in 1952 its tasks were taken over by the University of Chemical Industry in Veszprém. Further reforms in the 1960s extended chemical engineering studies to the M.Sc. level and introduced the range of specialised studies identified below. A Ph.D. program has also been established. Studies in English at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering began in the 1985/86 academic year.
Students in the BSc program receive a thorough introduction to areas basic to chemical engineering before they begin their specialisations in the fifth semester. Courses of the following branches are available to students depending on the number of applicants (at least 3 applicants)
both at the B.Sc. and M.Sc. levels:
• Analytical and Structural Chemistry
• Chemical and Process Engineering
• Industrial Pharmaceutics
• Polymer Technology
• Textile technology
The Faculty of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology aims for its students to acquire a profound theoretical knowledge in mathematics, physics and physical chemistry. It also aims to have its students experience, during their studies, all the types of tasks that chemical engineers encounter in their practical everyday work. Students will acquire up-to-date laboratory skills, get acquainted with the machines and apparati used in the chemical industry, know the principles needed for their optimal operation, and develop expertise in a more specific technology within the chemical, food and light industries.
Graduates of this Faculty will be versed in:
• The operations and personnel involved in chemical processes on an industrial scale,
• The development of the technology and products of industrial chemical processes,
• The design of industrial chemical processes,
• How a chemical product or application is introduced into the national economy, and
• The elaboration of new chemical processes, operations and technologies.
A three-year Ph.D. program is also available in all majors offered by the Faculty.