Chemical product engineering (CPdE) as a new direction of research and education

or a new paradigm of chemical engineering (ChE) has been proposed for twenty years. However

interpretation of the core of the CPdE discipline is diverse and chemical engineers working for process development and scale-up feel confused and lost about their role in CPdE. In this perspective

the CPdE discipline is revisited and analyzed and the core of the discipline is proposed as the manipulation of the microstructure of products through chemical processes and achieved by using chemical equipments. CPdE still falls into chemical process engineering

which is the process engineering for controllable

targeted

and efficient fabrication of the structure of high value-added products. By analogy with process development and scale-up to meet market demand and to increase production efficiency

the research needs are identified for CPdE to control the microstructure and optimize the performance of products. Finally

the methodologies for CPdE are briefly discussed.