In chemical engineering, processes are procedures encompassing mechanical, chemical, physical, electrical and biological steps to create a product from one or more substances. Decades of research and development have led to detailed knowledge of processes that shape our world today: from sawing off a piece of metal, to creating carbon nanotubes, everything that is industrially produced today comes from sets of very specific and controlled steps (i.e. process control (PC)).

Aquaponics -being an emerging field that deals with live organisms that can often be poorly understood-, can benefit from systematic engineering approaches found in process and chemical engineering disciplines. These approaches generally entitle breaking out a large process (a full aquaponic system in this case) into smaller sub-processes that can be studied both in isolation and in interaction with others. Read more