Costos básicos de los servicios brindados por los operadores de infraestructura

Not only has chemical engineering already positively impacted and enhanced the quality of our lives in many ways, but chemical engineers also will play a critical role in addressing the significant issues impacting today’s world and the future. The National Academy of Engineering3has identified a number of these issues as “Grand Challenges for Engineering,”4_{and it will become apparent that they affect individuals across the globe.}

The list of challenges was directed to all engineering disciplines, but chemical engineering is uniquely positioned to play a leadership role in many of them. In other words, chemical engineers can help humankind in general and can impact our whole earth!Here are the Grand Challenges (with brief commentary by the authors):

• Make Solar Energy Economical: Chemical engineers can help develop new ma- terials with unique chemical/electrical properties that will help reduce the cost and increase the efficiency of solar collectors and to create battery systems to store electrical energy from solar systems.

• Provide Energy from Fusion: Fusion, which produces the energy of the sun, has the potential to provide limitless, clean energy on Earth if it can be harnessed. Chemical engineers can help to discover and design the conditions and materi- als needed to induce fusion reactions and the reactors needed to contain those reactions.

• Develop Carbon Sequestration Methods: The concern that rising levels of carbon dioxide – which can trap heat like a “greenhouse” – in our atmosphere may be promoting warming of the earth has led to efforts to capture or “sequester” car- bon dioxide produced by the burning of fuels and to convert it to useful products or store it, for example in the earth. Chemical engineers can help develop these chemical processes.

• Manage the Nitrogen Cycle: Large-scale production and use of fertilizer, the wide- spread planting of legumes, and the high-temperature combustion of fuels have led to increased quantities of nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere and nitrates in the water. Consequences include greater quantities of greenhouse gases, degra- dation of the earth’s protective ozone layer, smog, acid rain, and contaminated drinking water. To address these issues, chemical engineers must take the lead in finding ways of increasing denitrification (conversion of nitrogen back to N2),

increasing the efficiency of fertilizer use without hampering food production, and minimizing the conversion of N2to NOxin combustion processes.

• Provide Access to Clean Water: The lack of clean drinking water directly or indi- rectly causes millions of deaths worldwide and is today’s greatest health hazard. Chemical engineers will continue to play a critical role in developing better and less-expensive methods for removing microbes and toxins from water and for removing salt from sea water.

• Restore and Improve Urban Infrastructure: The infrastructure of large cities, in- cluding utilities, transportation systems, telecommunication systems, healthcare systems, and the like, affect quality of life and need significant improvement in most cities of the world. Chemical engineers can play a role in some aspects of this challenge, including in the improvement of water-treatment systems and power plants and the reduction of automobile pollution.

• Advance Health Informatics: Health informatics involves the collection and main- tenance of health information in order to enhance quality of life through im-

1.3 The Impact of Chemical Engineering 7 proved medical care. This area, however, involves much more than health records! Imagine if health data could be gathered continuously by means of tiny sensors embedded in clothing or within the body. Chemical engineers will play a crit- ical role in the development of such technology. Chemical engineers will also lead the effort to protect us from biological and chemical terror by developing sensors and other tools for early detection and tracking of deadly substances, and effective flexible methods for rapid development and mass production of antidotes and other countermeasures.

• Engineer Better Medicines: Tomorrow’s medical care must include treatment that is specific to each patient (personalized medicine). This will require rapid and specific diagnosis (including identification of offending toxins or bacteria), rapid production of customized medication, and drug delivery to the appropriate lo- cation in the patient’s body with individualized dosage and timing. Chemical engineers will continue to work with physicians and others to understand the fundamental processes by which disease and treatment occur and to develop ef- fective diagnostic techniques and instruments, improved manufacture of specific pharmaceuticals, and drug-delivery systems with customized delivery patterns. • Reverse-Engineer the Brain: This grand challenge is based on the notion that

knowledge of the information patterns of the brain (information sharing, parallel processing, etc.) could provide a key to more effective diagnosis and treatment of neurological diseases and could also be utilized to formulate more effective decision-making strategies in our technical world. Chemical engineers are well equipped to join with others in this effort.

• Prevent Nuclear Terror: Methods are needed to thwart possible terrorist attacks using nuclear weapons constructed from waste material stolen from nuclear re- actors and shipped into our country hidden in the vast volume of our imports. Needed are devices to track nuclear material in reactors and post-reaction facil- ities to detect its unlawful removal, and devices to more effectively detect such material in shipping containers. Chemical engineers will contribute to these de- velopments.

• Secure Cyberspace: Improved methods of security are needed to thwart possible cyberattack on our computer-based society. Needed are more rigorous authenti- cation of users, protection of data during transfer, and countermeasures to mini- mize disruptions from failure or cybercrime. Chemical engineers generally play a peripheral role in such work, but a few typically build upon their versatile foundation to focus on computer technology.

• Enhance Virtual Reality: The effectiveness of virtual reality for training profes- sionals (surgeons, soldiers, chemical plant operators, etc.), psychotherapy, and behavioral research can be increased by higher-resolution systems, more intelli- gent (human-like) responses to user actions, and physical responses (e.g., touch) to user actions. Chemical engineers with a variety of specialties (chemical pro- cessing, medicine, etc.) will contribute to the training and other aspects of these efforts.

• Advance Personalized Learning: Education can and must be greatly enhanced by personalized tutoring (likely computerized) to help each student address per- sonal areas of confusion and overcome individual barriers to learning, all using a customized pace and strategy. Additional knowledge about learning is needed, as are advanced systems/programs for all levels and areas of learning, from for-

mal education (K-12, college, etc.) to professional training. Professionals in all disciplines (including chemical engineering) will participate.

• Engineer the Tools of Scientific Discovery: Future technological achievement will require more advanced, yet cheaper, analytical instruments and methods adapt- able to research environments ranging from biological field studies to advanced laboratories to space stations. Chemical engineering, with its broad encompass- ing of chemistry, math, physics, and biology, will continue to play a leadership role in this innovation.

Similar lists of challenges have been provided by Mark J. Kushner, Dean of the College of Engineering at Iowa State University under the heading “The 2050 Challenge”5and by the AIChE.6

Happiness is Changing the World as a Chemical Engineer

As suggested above, chemical engineers have the skills needed to make important contributions to the solutions of nearly all the Grand Challenges. In a very real sense, the future of the world is in your hands. Think about it – you could play a key role in develop- ing and providing clean energy for future generations. Tomorrow’s personalized medicines could be the result of your efforts. What an exciting time to be a chemical engineer!