Program overview
Industrial catalysis is a research direction under chemical engineering and technology. Simply put, it studies how to use catalysts to make chemical reactions faster, more energy-efficient, and less polluting. You will learn core courses such as catalytic principles, catalyst design and characterization, reaction engineering, and industrial catalytic processes. There are many lab sessions where you will frequently synthesize catalysts, test performance, and analyze data. This major suits students interested in both chemistry and engineering, especially those who enjoy hands-on experiments and exploring microscopic mechanisms. China has strong capabilities in catalysis—for example, the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (Chinese Academy of Sciences), Tianjin University, and East China University of Science and Technology have world-class research teams and industry partnerships in petrochemical catalysis, coal chemical catalysis, and environmental catalysis.