Why AI?

Hey, I'm a chemical engineer, not an AI engineer. Why should I use AI?
Heard this question? Oh, you've not just heard, you've asked it several times!
Well, if you are someone who asks this question regularly and stays away from AI, this section is just for you. Read on!

• AI is a friend, not an enemy!
  
  Driving a car doesn't make you a mechanical engineer
  Living at home doesn't make you a civil engineer
  Using a phone / computer doesn't make you a computer engineer
  Using MS Excel doesn't make you a data scientist.
  
  Similarly, learning AI and using it in chemical engineering domain doesn't make you an AI engineer. You are still a chemical engineer and you are expected to have proper knowledge of chemical engineering from basics to advanced. AI is just to help you out in your work and making it faster, precise and perfect. Just like car, home, phone / computer, MS Excel are tools, AI is also a tool.
• AI has become a necessary prerequisite for getting a job.
  
  Today, every company which has technical work to do, in any sector, use AI for coding and data analysis.
  MS Excel is widely used for data analysis, even python is used, but today AI has replaced these tools.
  Even for coding, Claude AI has emerged as a powerful tool for writing a code.
  So if you have those AI skills, your job is secure, else, you will have to upskill yourself before applying.

Use of AI in Chemical Engineering

AI is becoming a powerful tool in chemical engineering, not as a replacement for fundamentals, but as a force multiplier.
It helps you analyze faster, optimize better, and uncover patterns you wouldn't easily see.
Here are some ways stating how AI helps us in chemical engineering:

• Mass balance, energy balance and reaction kinetics
  
  Especially at the BTech level, we mostly solve mass and energy balance equations quite easily.
  We also solve the reaction kinetics based on the order and the rate of reaction.
  But how easy it will be if we feed the input and output of the system to an AI tool and it directly gives us the mass and energy balance based on the data, faster and more accurate, even faster than ASPEN?
• Predict reactor conversion without solving differential equations every time
  
  To find the reactor conversion, we always have to prepare the differential equation based on the design equation of the reactor, and then solve those time-consuming nasty equations painstakingly, every time, no matter how easy or how hard are they to solve!!
  Imagine calculating the reactor conversion without solving these differential equations - cool, isn't it? AI can do this for you!
• Process Optimization
  
  AI can optimize temperature, pressure, flow rate, catalyst usage, etc just by using reinforcement learning.
• Predictive Maintenance
  
  Heard of a plant shut down just because of equipment failure?
  What if someone tells you well in advance that your heat exchanger is going to foul, your catalyst is going to deactivate, your pump is going to fail?
  Well, AI can do this for you just by analyzing the data from the sensors.
  This saves a lot of cost, downtime and also prevents safety risks.