The greatest expansion of material is in the area of the bioreaction engineering. New material on enzyme kinetics, cell growth, and tissue engineering has been added. There is a bioreaction engineering homework or example problem in virtually every chapter. In addition there are side notes describing blood coagulation, DNA lab-on-a-chip and methanol poisoning. Bio-related Web Modules include physiological-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) models of alcohol metabolism and the Russell's viper, the cobra, and the Fer-de-Lance venomous snake bites.

Other new material includes density functional theory, microreactors, side-fed-membrane reactors, advanced reactor safety screening tool (ARSST), runaway reactors, and tubular reactors with axial and radial gradients (FEMLAB). Expanded material includes collision theory, transition state theory, molecular dynamics, and molecular chemical reaction engineering (DFT) to study rate constants.

The Fourth Edition contains more industrial chemistry with real reactors and real reactions and extends the wide range of applications to which chemical reaction engineering principles can be applied (i.e., cobra bites, medications, ecological engineering).