Laboratories for mechanical and thermal process engineering



Everyday products - unthinkable without process engineering


Research/main areas of work

The research activities in the field of process engineering are extremely diverse. These include, for example, the development of energy storage technology. The importance of energy storage and its expansion are central elements for our future. Solutions for recycling and disposal (recycling technology) must also be further developed.

The topic of microplastics in water, their origin, composition and effects on the environment is also very important and is being analysed in student projects.

There is also a focus on the development of nanoscale materials and applications in connection with process and measurement technology for the treatment and conservation of written cultural assets. This includes the deacidification and stabilisation of these archival materials.

The use of the process engineering laboratories is not limited to the laboratory courses offered during the semester, but also offers students, for student projects, Bachelor's and Master's theses, space and equipment for practical experiments (see also Brau-AG).

Biological process engineering (e.g. biogas) benefits greatly from the mechanical and thermal facilities of our laboratories.

Analyses and investigations for questions of other cross-faculty areas are also supported by our facilities.

Equipment

Test systems

  • Agitator extraction system for liquid-liquid extraction by Normag-Glas
  • Laboratory adsorption system CE540 of Gunt
  • Rectification with bell bottom column with 3 KW heating capacity
  • Rotary evaporator Heidolph Hei-VAP Plug & Play Premium 2
  • Heat exchanger test rig
  • Shredder Hosokawa Alpine Picoline with Picocross, Picocrush, Picoliq, Picojet and Picosplit
  • Shaking mill Retsch MM400
  • Cutting mill Retsch SM300
  • Drying oven Binder ED23
  • Agitator test rig with ViscoPakt rheo 57
  • Muffle furnace Nabertherm
  • Climatic cabinet Climacell
  • Steam test bench with superheated steam

Analysis devices

  • Shimadzu moisture analyser MOC-120H
  • Rotary viscometer Haake Viskotester 550
  • Höppler falling-sphere viscometer Rheotec KF10
  • Density measurement Anton Paar DMA 4500
  • Density measurement of solids and liquids with SartoriusYDK 01, YDK 01-0D, YDK 01LP
  • Real gas test rig, critical point by Henschke
  • Phase equilibrium apparatus for binary mixtures
  • Adsorption equilibrium for the determination of adsorption isotherms
  • Powder Brookfield flow tester
  • Surface determination according to Blain
  • Centrifuge Hereus Megafuge 16R
  • Sympatec Helos with Rodos, Sucel and Vibri
  • Sympatec Qicpic with Rodos and Vibri, and Gradis
  • Hosokawa Alpine e200LS air jet sieve
  • Retsch AS200 vibrating screen
  • Keyence confocal 3D laser scanning microscope VK-X100
  • Zeiss Discovery.V8 stereo microscopes

 

Impressions

The team

Non-Public Person

Teaching

The process engineering laboratories accompany and support the lectures and deepen the theory as well as the practice of thermal and mechanical process engineering. Necessary basic knowledge about material properties, such as density, viscosity, vapour pressure, particle size distribution, but also reaction kinetics is taught in basic laboratories.

The design of the specialisation laboratories with state-of-the-art techniques and an application-oriented selection of experiments such as

  • Rectification
  • Adsorption
  • Crystallisation
  • Stirring
  • Crushing

conveys the wide range of process engineering in industrial applications. The active execution of experiments by the students picks up on the current questions in their later everyday professional life and leads to independent solution finding.