The Unternehmerschaft Chemie Niederrhein has once again awarded its Chemistry Sponsorship Prize for a particularly innovative and practical orientation thesis from the Faculty of Chemistry at the Hochschule Niederrhein. This year, however, the quality of the work submitted was so high that the employers' association chose two winners.
Both Sören van Stiphoudt and Tobias Klomp had dedicated their work to sustainability and improving the energy efficiency of chemical production processes. "An important topic," said Ralf Schwartz, Chairman of Unternehmerschaft Chemie Niederrhein. After all, the comminution of solids is an important and indispensable process in the pharmaceutical, pigment, plastics and building materials industries. "It consumes around three to eight percent of the energy generated worldwide every year."
"The award-winning work carried out at the Faculty of Chemistry at The Hochschule Niederrhein focuses on improving the comminution process using the example of the spiral jet mill, which is widely used throughout the industry," explains supervising professor Heyko Jürgen Schultz. "The aim behind this was to reduce energy consumption andCO2 emissions, strengthen the competitiveness of the local economy in the chemical state of North Rhine-Westphalia and make production more sustainable." To this end, the award winners examined the comminution process using innovative and state-of-the-art measuring methods and successfully delivered innovative solutions, clear suggestions for improvement and specific design recommendations.
"A successful transfer of knowledge between industry and research that supports the ongoing optimization of production processes in chemistry towards sustainable manufacturing processes," says Kirsten Wittke-Lemm, Managing Director of the association, who is delighted if many university graduates take part in the competition again in the future. "Next year, we would again like to offer a prize for work with a particularly high practical relevance."
