Chemical Engineering interview questions
500 questions with model answers, in four levels. Start with Basic, check yourself honestly, then move up.
Basic questions
- Material & Energy Balances (13)
- Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics (13)
- Fluid Mechanics & Mechanical Operations (13)
- Heat Transfer (13)
- Mass Transfer (13)
- Chemical Reaction Engineering (13)
- Separation Processes (12)
- Process Control (12)
- Process Equipment Design (12)
- Process Safety & HAZOP (12)
- Industrial Chemical Processes & Petrochemicals (12)
- Process Economics & Plant Design (12)
Intermediate questions
- Material & Energy Balances (13)
- Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics (13)
- Fluid Mechanics & Mechanical Operations (13)
- Heat Transfer (13)
- Mass Transfer (13)
- Chemical Reaction Engineering (13)
- Separation Processes (12)
- Process Control (12)
- Process Equipment Design (12)
- Process Safety & HAZOP (12)
- Industrial Chemical Processes & Petrochemicals (12)
- Process Economics & Plant Design (12)
Advanced questions
- Material & Energy Balances (11)
- Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics (11)
- Fluid Mechanics & Mechanical Operations (11)
- Heat Transfer (11)
- Mass Transfer (11)
- Chemical Reaction Engineering (10)
- Separation Processes (10)
- Process Control (10)
- Process Equipment Design (10)
- Process Safety & HAZOP (10)
- Industrial Chemical Processes & Petrochemicals (10)
- Process Economics & Plant Design (10)
Tricky questions
- Material & Energy Balances (7)
- Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics (7)
- Fluid Mechanics & Mechanical Operations (7)
- Heat Transfer (6)
- Mass Transfer (6)
- Chemical Reaction Engineering (6)
- Separation Processes (6)
- Process Control (6)
- Process Equipment Design (6)
- Process Safety & HAZOP (6)
- Industrial Chemical Processes & Petrochemicals (6)
- Process Economics & Plant Design (6)
Sample questions
- What is a material balance?
- What is the difference between sensible heat and latent heat?
- What is an evaporator?
- What is the half-life of a first-order reaction?
- What is ratio control?
- What is a Safety Instrumented System?
- How do single-pass conversion and overall conversion differ in a recycle process?
- How much work does 1 mol of ideal gas do when expanding isothermally and reversibly at 300 K to double its volume?
- What is the heat flow through a 0.2 m brick wall (k = 0.7 W/m·K) with 100 °C temperature difference per m²?
- What is the difference between the integral and differential methods of kinetic analysis?
- What is the offset for a P-only controller with a unit step setpoint change?
- What is a bow-tie analysis?
- A reaction A → B has 25% single-pass conversion. Unreacted A is fully separated and recycled. For 100 mol/h fresh A, find the reactor feed and recycle rates.
- When would you run centrifugal pumps in series or in parallel?
- How do PSA and TSA differ?
- A P-only controller with K_c = 4 controls a process with gain K_p = 0.5. What is the offset for a unit step setpoint change?
- How is the thermal runaway hazard of a reaction assessed?
- Since mass is conserved in a reactor, are moles also conserved?
- Is a metal bar colder than a wooden block when both feel different at room temperature?
- Can dead time be eliminated by tuning the controller harder?