The Institute of Chemical Engineering (IChE) is an academic specialized scientific organization for chemical engineering at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) and a principal national research center for chemical and biochemical engineering science.

The mission of IChE is to contribute to the sustainable development of the country with its scientific methodology, scientific capacity and broad experience in the scientific and applied research fields of chemical technology and industrial biotechnologies.

Over the years in IChE has developed and prepared for industrial use more than 40 new processes, equipment and technological systems with environment-friendly or energy-saving effect.

The scientific staff of the IChE is recognized at international level for contributions in the development of liquid membrane methods for simultaneous extraction and concentration of valuable solutes from natural sources or toxic substances from waste waters.

About 70 scientific papers are published, about 70 reports (90% of them at international conferences) are exported and more than 500 citations of scientific contributions of the Institute are noticed annually.

The institute comprises 3 research laboratories:

1. Transfer Processes in Multiphase Media with scientific area including efficiency of absorption and distillation in packed bed and plate columns; advanced technologies for direct contact low grade heat recovery from hot flue and exhaust gases; innovative fuel cells, based on chemical and microbial processes; extraction of metals and organic compounds in liquid-liquid and liquid-solid systems; liquid-liquid extraction by ionic liquids; extraction of bioactive substances from vegetal resources; high efficiency activated carbon and composite nanostructures on carbon surface.
2. Chemical and Biochemical Reactors: The laboratory applies the methods of chemical and bioprocess engineering to develop, optimize and control processes for the chemical industry and biotechnology. Main topics are the reactors design, separation technologies, and microbial production of platform chemicals and fuels. The latest trends are targeted in converting of waste or renewable energy resources into variety of valuable chemicals and biotechnological products.
3. Process Systems Engineering with scientific area including continues and batch production systems, analysis, synthesis, design, control and scheduling processes integration (energy and mass), waste minimization, supply chains, bio fuels, dealing with uncertainties, chemical engineering thermodynamics; physical and thermodynamic properties prediction; modeling and simulation in chemical engineering, column apparatuses, special optimization techniques.

As a partner in Eplus the institute is involved in the work on the tasks of the Work plan in Component 1 -Storage and conversion of renewable energy, Component 2- Electric vehicles and hydrogen mobility and Component 3 -Effective methods for capturing and utilization of CO₂.