Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemical and Bio Engineering

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[edit] Comment

I originally wanted to start a "bioengineering" Wiki. What steps would be needed to establish such an entity?

Thank you.

Sincerely, Tim Maguire Rutgers, Department of Biomedical Engineering —Preceding unsigned comment added by Timjm (talk • contribs)

[edit] Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 23:56, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Encyclopedic tone

Dear Chemical and Bio enginieers! Lately there have been some examples of pages where chemists (in a non-engineering sense) and engineers worked together to write articles, which are very important in both fields. In two of these examples this has resulted in a clash between interests. The simple analogies, added from the chemist-side were described as 'cracking jokes' and 'comic strips'. Though I do understand that chemical engineering is more difficult to explain to the normal public, I do firmly believe that that is supposed to be the target of our work on wikipedia. If a subject is so specialistic, that the man in the street would not understand the article, or even would stop reading after the first sentence, maybe we should consider not even making it into an article on a wikipedia, but on specialised mediawiki's. This does not mean that we can not have these subjects here, but it means that the introduction of an article will have to be written in a simple tone, with simple mathematics, using simple schemes, and maybe even simple analogies, giving a good introduction to the subject. Later sections in the article can then be of the high-level, specialised talk which is needed to explain the deeper parts of the process. This will enable the man in the street to at least understand why e.g. hydrodesulfurization is so important a process. To continue with this example, this article looks like a typical example of a page where a non-chemist (and even a professor in human psychology) would not even understand half of the first sentence, let alone understand why this would even by an article on this wikipedia, I would even stop after the first two sentences, and I know why this is an important process, but this article does not invite to read on. And then a professor in chemistry has rewritten parts of it lately, and that has been quite an improvement!

I would like to hear some thoughts of you about this, thank you for your attention! --Dirk Beetstra T C 20:47, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I am a little unsure the purpose of your comment. I of course recognize that many engineering topics can be contributed to scientists and visa versa. Are you suggesting that we merge our wikiproject with a more organized "science" wikiproject? I am more interested in the biomedical topics, which are quite underdeveloped on wikipedia. Certainly I think that many non-engineers can help contribute, but as a whole the engineers on wikipedia are not very well organized and hopefully if we get the ball rolling on this wikiproject we can somewhat improve engineering-related articles, and at the same time involve non-engineers in editing as well.
As for your question about advanced topics, it is unfortuate that many higher topics in math, science, and engineering require a basic level of understanding. For example, my recent work on EDHF would probably fall into your category as to something a random person in the street couldn't understand. Yet, it is an extremely important topic in the cardiovascular research field. I for one would rather see lots of specialized articles on wikipedia in the hopes that the article or information I need that is relavant to my field is available. One way to improve things is to simply link to more general articles that may benefit readers unfamiliar with that field. Biomedeng 21:44, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
No, I am not thinking about merging with others, this project has full reason to stand on it's own, there are many good articles on wikipedia which can use the input of a chemical engineer. The way you explain EDHF seems a very good example of bringing it 'down to earth' I am just pleading for simple introductions, indeed with either many links, or with simple drawings, analogies, in such a way that all articles become understandable for the common public. --Dirk Beetstra T C 21:50, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I completely agree with your plea for simplier introductions. Unfortunately I am not a chemical engineer, and thus can't directly help out with hydrodesulfurization. Biomedeng 04:08, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I would disagree with your "Man on the street" approach. The "man on the street" doesn't understand, e.g., Fourier Transforms, but the article is still extremely useful to those who are dealing with Fourier Transforms. I think a better approach would be to write the first paragraph of the article in language that could be found in an off-the-shelf encyclopedia (i.e. non-technical, "man on the street" language), but include technical details in the remainder of the article. That way, if someone needs to get a general idea of what something is, they can read the first paragraph, and go "Oh, that's what hydrodesulfurization is!" and continue what they were doing, but if someone wanted more of the technical details, they could continue reading. Charlesreid1 (talk) 17:45, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
I also disagree with the "Man on the street" approach. Some of the things that we deal with as engineers can be very complicated and technical. I think that Charlesreid1's idea is a good one. Rather than dumbing down the technical parts to the point where it isn't useful to someone who knows chemical engineering, we should instead strive for a level that is useful to the "Engineer on the street", but perhaps not include all the details necessary to write a doctoral thesis. Jsmith86 (talk) 15:44, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion of the direction of this project

I was a little bit hesistant in particpating in this project because both Chemical and Bio Engineering had been combined. While I am quite confident in my ability to better the bio/biomedical engineering projects, I am not confident in my ability to assist with chemical engineering project (I don't even know which chemical engineering articles to identify as being part of our project). Before things get going further, I definately need some assistance on the chemical engineering side of things. As time goes on we may need to re-evaulate the merits of lumping these two fields together. (I vascilate between spinnging the categories off seperately, or adding additional engineering topics to make a mega engineering wikiproject.) Also we need to think about things such as new stub categories, biographies of notable chemical and biomedical engineers, etc. I have only been on wikipedia several months, so to me the task of building this project from scratch is quite daunting. I would really appreciate guidance from other users on where to start and what has been successful on other projects. I can't do all of this on my own, but before we dive into this project we need a better plan. For example, tagging articles without a template that puts them into a category for this wikiproject has resulted in articles which are labeled as part of the project, but without a mechanism for other project members to locate these articles. Biomedeng 22:44, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I have some competence in Chemical Engineering. The reason why I combined two rather different fields is only becoz of my interests. I confess I have hardly any competence in Bioengineering. I still hope that this Project works out. Else, if people insist, we can split up the project. But I though not enough people would participate in such a project. anyways, I am going to be on a sort of hiatus coz of my examination. Lets see what happens after that. Ketankhare 08:25, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Joint project is a good idea, it provides more stimulation. --Sadi Carnot 22:14, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestions

As to suggestions, first I would create a list of all the related or sister projects and umbrella projects. As a guide, on how to improve this page, I might follow: Wikipedia:WikiProject Evolutionary biology, e.g. add a hierarchical definition header, put a paragraph at the top of the page, etc. Someone should make a user box to like the one below: --Sadi Carnot 05:20, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

This user is a participant of
WikiProject Physics.
Here you go {{User WikiProject Chemical and Bio Engineering}} --Holderca1 15:41, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Good work. --Sadi Carnot 23:57, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Biomedical Engineering Categories

BMES recently published a request for the NRC to consider expanding the taxonomy of BME research doctorate programs [1] (see page 10). The list is as follows:

Since BME is such a huge and diverse field I think we need some smaller subcategories to build out on. I would like to propose that we use this as a guideline to define the field of Biomedical Engineering. Please share any additional thoughts or missing areas that definately belong in the BME field. Biomedeng 01:57, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a good plan, let's use it as a guideline but not follow it exactly. I’m particularly interested in the first three topics. Some time in the distant future, I would like to see a full curriculum, textbook, and department of neurosurgical engineering, with focus on new technological developments and applications in the area of central nervous system bio-electrical artificial implants, microprocessor accruements, neuro-cellular phone implants, neuro-reference chips, etc. --Sadi Carnot 23:05, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Sadi, thanks for your work on the project page and creating the tables of important articles and people in the field. One concern I have about BME and bioengeering being seperate is that the terms are often used interchangeably (for better or worse) and it is often unclear what the difference is. Most schools will either have a Biomedical Engineering or a Bioengineering department, but not both. It is hard for me to decide if Biomechanics is either BME or Bioengineerng. Should we just combine those terms in the table? Biomedeng 02:38, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it could be possible that they are synanyums? Yet, WP has an article for each: biomedical engineering (very active page) and bioengineering (little activity); I think I’ve also heard about people getting degrees in biochemical engineering (medium activity)? If it comes down to it, we can make this a four category project. Let’s see what everyone else says, no need to rush. I'll add in an extra column to the table to see if anyone makes any contributions in the coming weeks or months. Talk later: --Sadi Carnot 02:57, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FAC for DNA

HI there. This article is now a candidate for a featured article. Any comments or suggestions would be welcome on its nomination page here. Thank you. TimVickers 23:11, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 17:37, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project image needed

We need to make a good image to put in the upper right hand corner of the project page, that represents a synergism of chemistry, biology, medicine, and engineering. Maybe some kind of multi-image picture? The Commons is a good place to search. --Sadi Carnot 23:18, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

As a test image, I added Hooke's microscope. Other good ones are below. --Sadi Carnot 03:41, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Image:Science-symbol-2.png Image:Nuvola apps kcalc.png Image:Differential.png
Chemistry Biology Engineering Differential equations Artificial organs

[edit] Bohr model intro image debate help needed

Please comment here: Talk:Bohr model#Intro image debate to help reach consensus as to what “Bohr’s atom model” actually looked like. Thanks: --Sadi Carnot 07:32, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chemical plant, processes, design, etc.

To any chemical engineers, chemists, and anybody else who might be interested:

  1. I (User:H Padleckas) have expanded the article "Chemical plant" from what was about a 4-sentence stub to practically a full article. I then added this article to the list of important core chemical engineering articles in the Chemical and Bio Engineering WikiProject list. I tried to cover fundamental and practical aspects of chemical plants in this article, particularly those aspects which do not seem to be covered in other articles. Topics related to chemical plants which had their own articles were covered only briefly in this article. Considering this article is for general readers mainly and secondarily for experts, I did not include any mathematical equations or formulas. Beyond a photo of a chemical plant someone else placed in the Chemical plant article, there are no pictures or diagrams.
  • Does anybody care to review it?
  • I wrote this article based on information from my education and practical experience. Would anybody like to add some references to it?
  • Does anybody think there is any hope of someday turning Chemical plant into a feature-quality article? Such a feature-quality article would represent a more practical or applicable aspect of chemistry, where many of the topics sometimes seems to be on the theoretical or historical side.
2. Until a day or two ago, Chemical process was redirect to Chemical reaction, but "chemical process" is not mentioned in this article. Such a redirect may have been made by a chemist. In a general or scientific sense, one can take take a look at the words "chemical" and "process", then conclude that a chemical process is a method or means of transforming something chemically, whether natural or artificial. However in an engineering sense, a chemical process is an industrial process where chemicals or chemistry is involved. In this sense, the phrase "Chemical process" is widely used. I replaced the Chemical process redirect with a somewhat short article I just wrote explaining these possible usages of the term and the rest of the article was about the engineering use of the term. That information is practically duplicated in the Chemical plant article I (mostly) wrote. This situation can be left as-is or these two potential usages of the term can be incorporated into the start of the Chemical plant article, and Chemical process turned into a redirect going to the Chemical plant article. The Chemical plant article covers aspects of chemical plants other than chemical processes themselves, so moving the Chemical plant text to Chemical process with the reverse redirect would not be a good idea. Does anybody have any thoughts on this matter?
3. Previously there was an article called Process design which covered industrial process design. Although probably intended to cover any industrial processes, chemical engineering processes were emphasized. This article was renamed Process design (chemical engineering), and Process design was turned into a redirect to Design, which covered design of things but hardly covered process design at all. I am in favor of restoring the Process design article to cover industrial processes in general with perhaps a section on chemical process design. There is a sizable section on chemical plant design in the Chemical plant article, which this article could refer to. Does anybody have any thoughts on this matter?
4. The term "unit" (as in unit operations) is briefly "defined" in the Chemical plant article. There is no separate Unit (chem plant) article that I know of for chemical plant units; so I am considering making any links to this sort of unit go to the Chemical plant#Chemical processes section of the article. For example, there is a unit link in the Oil refinery article going to the disambiguation article Unit, where I recently added an entry for a chemical engineering type of "unit".
update - I have since fixed this "unit" link in the Oil refinery article as mentioned above. H Padleckas 19:31, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
5. The term "feedstock" is also briefly "defined" in the Chemical plant article. There is an article called Feedstock which covers chemical process feedstocks, but it is only a short stub, little beyond a definition. Should this Feedstock article be deleted and feedstock links go to the Chemical plant article instead, or should/can the Feedstock article be expanded?
update - Since the time above item 5. was written, the Feedstock article was speedy deleted, most likely because it was only a very short stub consisting little beyond a definition. Also just recently, an admin eliminated [all] the links to Feedstock in perhaps a couple dozen articles. To restore those links will require a bit of effort i. e. time, in case one were to want those links for a future expanded Feedstock article or to redirect to Chemical plant#Chemical processes section. H Padleckas (talk) 00:27, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
6. I also included one sentence in "Chemical plant" with a link to Fluidized bed. The Fluidized bed article used to be a short stub which has been converted to a redirect to Fluidized bed combustion. Fluidized beds are also used for applications other than fluidized bed combustion, so I think a generalized Fluidized bed article is appropriate, instead of a mere redirect to Fluidized bed combustion. I have restored the Fluidized bed article and added a tidbit more information to it, mentioning the distributor plate. There is also an article called Fluidized bed reactor with a fuzzy black and white diagram. In a course I took on fluidized beds, I learned they can also be used for applying coatings to solid items, in addition to uses as a reactor and catalyst regenerator. Therefore, a generalized Fluidized bed article is appropriate. There is an article called Fluidization, which may be redundant in view of a Fluidized bed article. Does anybody think the Fluidized bed and Fluidization articles ought to be merged?
H Padleckas 06:38, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
  • The Chemical plant article looks excellent. I am not an appropriate peer reviewer but it is consistent with my limited knowledge from casually talking to chemical engineers in the past about their process control classes etc. At some point in the future someone will come along and start demanding references to support the article. It would be good to throw in as much as you can while you are at it. If it is truly general knowledge a few college text books would be a good start. Well written, informative and easily understood. Good work. Keep it up.--Nick Y. 00:38, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Nick Y., thank you for your review and comments on Chemical plant.
H Padleckas 19:31, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
This article looks fantastic, Henry! Thanks for this, it's the kind of things I think kids should be writing papers on, people forget that virtually everything they own came through a chemical plant! I've felt for a long time that we are really weak in industrial chemistry, and this article helps to fill some of that large void. I did put in a little, but I could find very content missing. It matches very well with my experiences in industry. One thing, though, as Nick points out, these days one has to have inline references. Thanks for a great job! Walkerma 02:46, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
By the way, the questions you raise are a bit too engineering-related for me (a mere chemist) to answer. Maybe Mbeychok could give an opinion? Cheers, Walkerma 02:49, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Another couple of comments. 1. Regarding refs, I'm afraid I judged the content based on my personal experience too - but as a chemist, I have virtually no books at all on this topic, and none of my knowledge is written down. Heaton's "Industrial Chemistry" is one source I have, I'll see if that can help, but I have almost no engineering books. 2. It might be nice to include a little history, too. I may be able to help a little there, as long as I don't get sidetracked onto other things. Walkerma 02:56, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Martin, thank you for your review, comments, and input on Chemical plant. In your phrase above "but I could find very content missing.", I suspect you meant to write "but I could find very little content missing." If not, please let me know what you meant. H Padleckas 19:31, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Good work Padleckas, I have Douglas' 1988 Conceptual Design of Chemical Processes (a decent book), I'll try to add a bit with this reference. Talk later: --Sadi Carnot 06:54, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your review and input on Chemical plant. H Padleckas 19:31, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Article could use some references, but it's a good start for the article. Also, I feel that the article needs some significant expansion in the environmental impact area. This is a critical part of plant design, and will only become more and more important. Also, there was no information about the decommissioning or shutdown of a chemical plant. It's very important to focus on the impact of chemical plants. Charlesreid1 (talk) 17:59, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Oil refinery and Vapor-Liquid Equilibrium

I have added {{Chemical and Bio Engineering Project}} tags to the Talk pages of both the Oil refinery article and a new Vapor-Liquid Equilibrium article I wrote, since they are both topics chemical engineers work on; for these Talk page links see Talk:Oil refinery and Talk:Vapor-Liquid Equilibrium. So many chemical engineers work at oil refineries, which are essentially large chemical plants, that I am considering adding Oil refinery to the list of 15 core chemical engineering articles on the WikiProject page. There are still 5 blank spaces left for core chemical engineering articles in this list. H Padleckas 03:41, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely, make it so. Half of my friends went to work for petroleum refineries. My Felder and Rousseau (2000) devotes the first chapter to What Some Chemical Engineers Do for a Living, of which a survey was conducted of graduating chemical engineers at a large university. The lion's share (45%) went to work for large chemical, petrochemical, pulp and paper, plastics and other materials, or manufacturing firms. Nice article on VLE by the way. Brien ClarkTalk 04:08, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Interesting project page

This project page Wikipedia:WikiProject Systems has some nice templates we might want to employ here? --Sadi Carnot 11:06, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

The page looks really nice. I've always wanted to implement the assessment system that they (and many other WikiProjects) have, but have never really had the time to look into it. If you need help with implementing anything, I'll try to be of assistance. —Brien ClarkTalk 16:23, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
This one: Wikipedia:WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology has some nice scroll templates we can use in the future. --Sadi Carnot 03:46, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ChE timeline

Please contribute to this new timeline section I just started, if you can. Thanks: --Sadi Carnot 15:10, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances

Started monumental paper, please feel free to chip in. Thanks: --Sadi Carnot 15:31, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cast your vote at the energy article straw poll

A new user turned the energy article into a disambig page; we are trying to fix the problem presently. Please cast your vote at straw-poll overview, on the proposed solution. Thanks: --Sadi Carnot 22:28, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Salaries

I do not feel this is appropriate in an encyclopedia entry. It is the sort of thing you find on a web-page advertising the profession, not a dispassionate look. How many other profession web-pages have salaries? In addition it is time specific and shows a limited American view of the world.Chemical Engineer 20:58, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I disagree, chemical engineering is often cited as the highest-paying degree, year after year. Subsequently, this is a significant peculiarity unique to this profession. Possibly, you may want to add references:
to explain this high-end pay grade. --Sadi Carnot 13:43, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed WikiProject Engineering

Hi. I have created a temporary page for WikiProject Engineering at User:Tbo 157/WikiProject Engineering. Interested users should add their name to the list and are encouraged to help improve the page so that it is ready to be moved to the Wikipedia space when there are enough participants. Tbo 157talk 16:34, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

The project has now been created at Wikipedia:WikiProject Engineering. We are currently looking for more members. Thanks. Tbo 157(talk) (review) 22:10, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pseudoscience spamming

We just busted a long-term WP:COI spamming campaign that involved the pushing of pseudoscientific materials via use of sockpuppetry. The party responsible was a member of this wikiproject. See WP:ANI#User:Sadi_Carnot for more information (permanent link). Please check through this editor's contributions, as well as the sockpuppet's and fix any of the damage he may have caused. Thanks. MER-C 06:08, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notice of List articles

Page(s) related to this project have been created and/or added to one of the Wikipedia:Contents subpages (not by me).

This note is to let you know, so that experts in the field can expand them and check them for accuracy, and so that they can be added to any watchlists/tasklists, and have any appropriate project banners added, etc. Thanks. --Quiddity 20:16, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vacuum furnace merge proposal

Hi folks,

Hope I'm in the right place - apologies if not. I have a proposal underway to merge vacuum oven into vacuum furnace, and I'd appreciate an expert's verdict on whether this is a justifiable merge. Please chip in at the Talk:Vacuum furnace talk page with any opinions. Gonzonoir (talk) 17:10, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Packed Bed

Hi. I am currently trying to expand upon the packed bed stub article. I wanted to know if anyone had any thoughts on what specific parts of this article would be the most important to improve on to help this article get from a stub category to an article. I would appreciate any feedback. Thanks. Fxcenglish (talk) 18:35, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Biomechanics of animal locomotion

I'd like help with a bunch of articles on the biomechanics of animal locomotion: Lead change, Lead (leg), Horse gait, Locomotion... See Talk:Horse gait#Group gaits. Thanks. --Una Smith (talk) 16:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] We have the template so lets use it

We have a perfectly good template to put in talk pages to let others know that the article is within the scope of chemical and/or bio engineering. So lets use it. Start putting it on other pages that would be good for chemical engineers to review. As an added bonus, it will bring other engineers to the project. For example, why is it that Heat exchanger does not have our wikiproject on its talk page? I remember spending a good portion of my heat transfer class learning about heat exchanger design. Jsmith86 (talk) 16:12, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rating Articles by quality?

Would we be interested in using a bot to sort and catogarize our articles by their priority and status? I have seen it done with many of the other wikiprojects, and it seems to work quite well for them. Information about it can be found here--Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Using the bot Jsmith86 (talk) 21:54, 12 April 2008 (UTC)