Welcome to
the McKetta Department of
Chemical Engineering

Learn More About
Our Department

Undergraduate Chemical Engineering Program

$2.5M

Awarded in Scholarships

Graduate Chemical Engineering Program

Spotlights

Explore more at the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering

Versatile ‘Nanocrystal Gel’ Could Enable Advances in Energy, Defense and Telecommunications

New applications in energy, defense and telecommunications could receive a boost after a team at The University of Texas at Austin created a new type of “nanocrystal gel” — a gel composed of tiny nanocrystals each 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair that are linked together into an organized network.

Professor Joan Brennecke Honored Among Top Inventors

Joan Brennecke, professor in the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering, has been selected as a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, a prestigious distinction awarded to a select group of 164 academic innovators around the world for 2021.

New Way to Pull Lithium from Water Could Increase Supply, Efficiency

Anyone using a cellphone, laptop or electric vehicle depends on lithium. The element is in tremendous demand. And although the supply of lithium around the world is plentiful, getting access to it and extracting it remains a challenging and inefficient process.

An interdisciplinary team of engineers and scientists is developing a way to extract lithium from contaminated water. New research, published this week in Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, could simplify the process of extracting lithium from aqueous brines, potentially create a much larger supply and reduce costs of the element for batteries to power electric vehicles, electronics and a wide range of other devices.

Craig and Corinne Cassel smiling in graduation regalia

Like Father, Like Daughter: Texas ChE Alumni Share Unique Legacy

Some little girls grow up wanting to follow in their father’s footsteps. Houston-native and recent Cockrell School of Engineering graduate Corrinne Cassel (B.S. ChE 2020) took this dream seriously, following her father’s footsteps right to the Forty Acres to pursue a degree in chemical engineering just like her dad, Craig Cassel (B.S. ChE 1987), did over 30 years earlier. Corrinne and her father, Craig, now share a unique experience that few father-daughter duos can tout: they are both graduates of the Cockrell School’s McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering.

Page 2 of 2

Emerson partnership

Nicholas Peppas Wins Northwestern’s Kabiller Prize

SC27 Antibody

Newly Discovered Antibody Protects Against All COVID-19 Variants

Research Areas

Advanced Materials, Polymers & Nanoengineering
Design and synthesis of inorganic and polymeric materials at the molecular level to achieve desirable properties for a wide range of applications

Learn More
Bioengineering
Applying chemical engineering principles for the development of biochemical processes and biomedical applications

Learn More
Energy
The development of photovoltaics, catalysts for fuels from sunlight, and electrical energy generation and storage systems engineering for energy efficiency

Learn More
Environmental Engineering
Programs to understand the fundamental science and engineering of air and water pollution, and to develop data for informed policy decisions. Process development for CO2 capture and sequestration

Learn More
Process Engineering
Design, modeling, optimization, and control of petrochemical, pharmaceutical, and microelectronic processes

Learn More
Theory & Simulation
The development and application of multiscale models and high performance computational simulations spanning atomic to continuum time and length scales

Learn More