CHEMICAL

ENGINEERING INTERNET
RESOURCE GUIDE

Nate Sauers
2016

For Undergraduate Students

Table of Contents
PREFACE......................................................................................2
WHAT IS IN THIS GUIDE......................................................................................2
WHO THIS GUIDE IS FOR....................................................................................2
WHAT THIS GUIDE ASSUMES...............................................................................2
HOW THIS GUIDE IS ORGANIZED..........................................................................2
TIPS FOR USING THIS GUIDE...............................................................................2
GENERAL WEBSITES......................................................................3
PENN STATE CHEMICAL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT HOMEPAGE..................................4
AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERS (AICHE) HOMEPAGE..........................5
HOMEWORK WEBSITES..................................................................6
PENN STATE WEBAPPS.......................................................................................7
NIST CHEMISTRY WEBBOOK...............................................................................8
RESEARCH WEBSITES....................................................................9
CATALOG OF U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS....................................................10
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY.............................................................11
SCIFINDER.....................................................................................................12

PREFACE
What is in This Guide
This guide features websites and resources available to Penn State chemical engineering students
that will help them succeed in their academic careers. This guide provides the location of these
websites and their importance to a chemical engineering student. It also includes tips for ease of
use so the websites can be operated at full efficiency.

Who This Guide is For

This guide is for Penn State students enrolled in the chemical engineering program. This guide is
mainly for those students in their freshman through senior years of the undergraduate program.

What This Guide Assumes

This guide assumes that students have a Penn State access account and password. The access
account is used to access many of the data bases and research material. The guide also assumes a
student be familiar with some of the chemical engineering language and topics. Some language
and topics can be hard to understand while the research is being conducted, so it is wise to learn
them beforehand.

How This Guide is Organized

The organization of this guide is based on the order websites may be used in your academic
career. First, general websites to introduce you to chemical engineering and engineering at Penn
State; second, websites that will aid in homework assignments in various classes; finally,
websites and resources that will be used to conduct research.

Tips for Using This Guide

Use the table of contents for easy navigation. The table of contents is organized by
section as well as webpage so it is easier to find what you are looking for.

Each webpage has its own tips section. These tips will provide you with easy navigation
tips, or ways to get out of common problems associated with the resource.

GENERAL WEBSITES
This section features websites that introduce you to chemical engineering and chemical
engineering at Penn State. The websites can be useful to make connections not only at Penn
State, but nationally as well. They also provide news and links to keep you up to date.

Penn State Chemical Engineering Department Homepage

Website: http://fenske.che.psu.edu/
This is the website for Penn States Chemical Engineering department. This website contains a
lot of important information for students in the chemical engineering program, those interested in
the program and alumni. The front page features news and different events in the department. In
addition to this, there are links to different areas of the website. One useful link is the people
section. In this section, you can find various professors in the department as well as their
research interests. There is also a letter from the department head welcoming students to the
departments page. There are also links to find internships and co-op opportunities. There is an
entire section for undergrads and prospective students. This sections includes many useful
pages, such as one titled What is Chemical Engineering? This page provides students a
comprehensive look at the program. There are also pages describing various scholarships, a
recommended academic plan, details about the honors option, and the undergraduate handbook.
All of these links provide plenty of valuable information.
Tips for use:
o The bar at the top has many tabs that make for simple navigation. The bar is
mobile, so theres no need to worry about getting lost by scrolling down.
o There are university links featured on the website, so if there is a service you need
you can access it from this site.

American Institute
Homepage

of

Chemical

Engineers

(AIChE)

Website: http://www.aiche.org/
This is the website for the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. The AIChE, offers many
valuable resources to chemical engineers. On this webpage, you can find various links, all
containing helpful information. There are links to various events that the AIChE is holding.
These events can range from speeches about research to a presentation on using a new software.
There is a section with news from industry, which gives headlines about important research and
field work chemical engineers are doing. There is also a news section describing important
happenings in the AIChE. Links with information about purchasing various books, magazines
and journals with relevant information to chemical engineering are also provided. The most
important part of this website is that this is how you join the AIChE. Membership is free for
Penn State students, and I highly recommend joining. The AIChE hosts various events on
campus and can help you get a job or an internship.
Tips for use:
o On the homepage there is a Join tab, making it easy to find the application to
become a member of the AIChE.
o There is a search bar to look for research you are interested in, which is much
faster than browsing the website in order to find it.

HOMEWORK WEBSITES
This section features websites that can be used to provide homework assistance. These websites
either feature programs for use, or data for reference. These websites can save time and reduce
stress while completing various homework assignments.

Penn State WebApps

Website: https://webapps.psu.edu/
This website offers programs free of charge for Penn State students. Many useful programs can
be found on this website to use, but the programs most useful to chemical engineers are
Mathematica, MATLAB and Microsoft Office 2013. Mathematica is a program that helps
chemical engineers solve math problems. Most of these problems are either too difficult to solve
on paper, or have many variables that define the function. MATLAB is a program that chemical
engineers use to write code. This code is also used to solve math problems with a high degree of
difficulty. While both programs can be used to solve problems, they are very different from each
other. Both have advantages and disadvantages, but can be useful in a variety of situations.
Microsoft Office 2013 includes the programs such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Microsoft
Word is a word processor that chemical engineers use to type documents, such as lab reports and
proposals. Microsoft Excel is a program which can make graphs and do multiple functions
quickly and easily. An advantage to Microsoft Excel is that number can be changed and all
values will be automatically update with no need to rerun anything. Microsoft PowerPoint can
be used to make presentations for a class, or to view a professors presentation after class has
concluded. Each of these programs can be $100+ alone, so the free offering from Penn State is
very useful.
Tips for use:
o The program files are saved onto your Penn State desktop. This means files will
be accessible on any Penn State computer. However, this means files on your
personal computer must be uploaded to WebApps. This is easily done by using
the pink toolbox button, and clicking the upload option from the dropdown menu.
o The programs can sometimes crash or unexpectedly log you out, so be sure to
save work often.

NIST Chemistry WebBook

Website: http://webbook.nist.gov/chemistry/
This website provides chemical information from the National Institute of Standards and
Technology. This is one of the most valuable resources for a chemical engineer. There are many
useful links on this website. One of them being the formula browser. In this section, you can
piece together the formula of your desired compound by clicking the links. When you piece the
formula together, it takes you to the NIST webpage about that molecule. An alternative method
to getting to this page is to use the search feature. The search feature is much more useful than
the formula browser because there are more search options. Searches can be done by formula,
chemical name, structure, or molecular weight. Although there are more search options, these
are the most useful to chemical engineers. Because of many compounds having similar formulas
and molecular weights, this tool can be a quicker way to get to the information you need. On the
chemical data page, there is important information for various classes. There is the chemical
formula, molecular weight, and structure that can be useful for CHEM 110, 111, 112 and 113.
These are the freshmen chemistry lecture and lab courses. For CHEM 210, 212 and 213, which
is organic chemistry lecture and lab, there is other useful information. There is data for IR, mass
spectrum, UV/Vis spectrum, and gas chromatography. This data is used to analyze products in
organic chemistry, so comparing your data to the expected data can prove useful. The final
section important to chemical engineers is the thermophysical properties of fluid systems section.
This provides known physical values of fluids that are used in problems in the thermodynamics
classes, CH E 220 and 320. This resource will help you find data necessary to solve problems
given a fluid with no data.
Tips for use:
o It can be easy to get lost in the sea of chemical data, if this happens return to the
homepage and refine your search to ensure you find exactly what you are looking
for.
o When searching for the data values for fluids, ensure the units you request match
the units in the problem. If an equation is given for Celsius and you unknowingly
use units of Fahrenheit, not only will you receive an incorrect answer, but it could
be difficult to find your error.

RESEARCH WEBSITES
This section features websites that can be used while conducting research for reports. These
websites have many great sources to use for projects and papers. These websites catalog a lot of
information and make it easy to access this information quickly.

Catalog of U.S. Government Publications

Website: http://catalog.gpo.gov/
This is a database to find government documents relevant to your research. The website will
direct you to the search page. At the bottom of the page, you can search for a topic based on
keyword, author, title, or subject. When you search, the results appear by publication year,
which is convenient. For each result, there are two links. One link takes you directly to the
document, while the other links to the bibliographical data. This bibliographical data can be
transposed into your report. All documents are free of access, so unlike other sources, you do not
need to be on campus to access the database. I have provided a document that I found using the
database that has good bibliographical information, as well as relevance to chemical engineering.
In this document, with the bibliography provided below, there is a discussion about dispersing oil
in fresh water. This publication can prove to be very useful in a report, as oil spills are accidents
that occur frequently.
Tips for use:
o Sometimes the pages open in a document viewer. This is very inconvenient, as
you can only view one page at a time. In order to avoid this, there is a dropdown
function that says pages per view. Click the option that says All via PDF, this
provides one, continuous document.
o The PDF can be easily searched for the specific information you want to find.
Use the keyboard shortcut CRTL+F. This will bring up a search bar that you can
use to quickly scan the document.
Bibliography for government publication:
United States. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. National Risk Management
Research Laboratory. Dispersion of Crude Oil and Petroleum Products in
Freshwater. By Brian A. Wrenn. Cincinnati: 2008. Catalog of U.S. Government
Publications.

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Chemical Engineering & Technology

Website: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1521-4125
This is a journal, published monthly, discussing new information in the chemical engineering
field. The homepage features a plethora of material. In the left-hand column, you can select a
recent publication. This section features the current issue, as well as the four previous issues. In
the right-hand column, there is a list of recent special issues that features edits, updates and other
content that wasnt originally featured in the journal. Under these sections is a section detailing
the most recent published articles. In order to find information quickly and easily, a search bar
located in the upper right-hand corner, is provided. With this search bar you can find articles
most prevalent to you by using keywords. This journal is free to access by Penn State students
while on campus.
Tips for use:
o While searching, make sure that you are search in the journal as opposed to
searching for another publication or on the web. This is indicated when the drop
box says In this journal.
o When citing this journal as a source, most professors prefer the newest
information. It is a good idea to refine your search to the most recent documents,
and try to find the newest that are most relevant to you.

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SciFinder
Website: https://scifinder.cas.org/
SciFinder Scholar is an online database containing journals, patents, and various other resources
useful to chemical engineers in conducting research. There is an excellent search feature that can
help you find exactly what you are looking for. You can search for a substance by its structure,
molecular formula, name or a few other properties. When you find a structure, you can click the
Get References button. This takes you to a pop-up window where you can limit your results to
things such as uses, or reactant. This feature is useful for CHEM 213, organic chemistry lab.
When you make your product, you can find why it is useful to know how to make it. Once you
select the results you are looking for, a list of journal article, patents, etc. appear. You can then
change what youre looking for, or further refine your search by things such as author or
publication year. This service is free to Penn State students, however, you must create an
account for SciFinder that doesnt use your Penn State user ID or access account password.
Tips for use:
o Because of molecules having similar formulas or structures, ensure you have
selected the correct molecule. Be sure it correctly matches the literature you have
on it, or compare spectral data to make sure you have the right one. Selecting the
wrong one could negatively impact your report.
o Because of the numerous articles on this website, refine your search as much as
possible to ensure you are getting what you expect. Nothing is more frustrating or
time consuming as when you think you found the article youre looking for, and
its printed in another language or has been disproven. Ensure you have recent
articles in a language you and your professor understand.

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