The Department of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering was established in 2010 in line with the vision of the University to develop programs that would address National developmental challenges. The Department went through NUC verification exercise in May 2011 and the programme name, Materials and Metallurgical Engineering (MME) was approved. The admissions into the programme have been through UTME for entry into 100 level and Direct Entry into 200 level. The 100 Level courses are consistently been taught by the Faculty of Life and Physical Sciences, and the general Engineering courses at 200 Level are anchored at the Faculty of Engineering and Technology. The 300 level, 400 level and 500 level courses are domiciled primarily in the Department. The Department has graduated seven sets of graduates since 2015. The department has employed competent staff since inception. The academic staff ranked from Professor to lecturer II with highly skilled technologists and technicians. There are three administrative staff members.
The Department relocated from temporary accommodation to a purposely built edifice, which housed lecture rooms, staff offices and laboratories in 2015. The University is determined to adequately equip the four new laboratories to international standards. With plans in place to achieve this objective, we presently enjoy inter-departmental collaboration with Geology, Chemical, Civil and Mechanical Engineering Departments as well as central workshop and central research laboratories on range of laboratory facilities for teaching and research purposes. The Departmental Foundry facilities which housed melting furnaces, sand and mould preparation shop, pattern shop and machining shop was formerly located at the Ilorin Centre for Appropriate Technology (ICATEC) under the management of the University. However, recent attrition over the right of occupancy of the foundry site necessitated the construction of a foundry workshop next to the Department by the University. The foundry is excellently performing well. It housed four (4) melting furnaces with aforementioned facilities. It also has a separate high powered functional diesel generating set. The Department has been equipped recently with hardness testing machine, metallurgical microscope, muffle furnace, oven, weighing balance, spot welding, sieve shaker, hot plate magnetic stirring machine, potentiostat, electropolishing machine, grinding and polishing machine, cutting machine, ball milling machine and froth flotation machine, a benefit from TetFund National Research Fund (NRF) grant.
The Department of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering has witnessed appreciable development over the last nine years, it is hoped that the Department will continue in its giant stride to witness more growth and development to be a centre of excellence in human capacity building for Nigeria and the world over.