The School of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) was established on 1st May 1992 which is a part of the 6th Malaysia Plan (1991 – 1995). Formerly, the school was located at USM branch campus in Tronoh, Perak. The establishment was intended to offer a chemical engineering undergraduate program to train a highly competent professional chemical engineers in the nation’s growing chemical process industries.
The chemical engineering undergraduate program was offered as three years program in between 1996 to 1999 because of high demand in job market in that period despite of the world economic crisis in 1998. However, four years chemical engineering undergraduate program was reintroduced in 2000 to ensure the quality of the future engineers.
In May 2001, the school was moved to a new USM Engineering Campus located at Nibong Tebal, which is about 50 km from its main campus in Penang Island. The new school equipped with modern facilities which include Process Control, Unit Operation, Chemistry, Analytical, Environmental Control, Petroleum & Gas, Computer and Research Laboratories.
The school also offered a chemical engineering program at Master and Doctorate level in various specific field. This includes carbon materials, membrane separation technology, catalyst synthesis, wastewater treatments, process dynamic & control, biofuels production, activated carbon adsorption, enzyme technology, tissue & cell culture engineering and nanomaterials.