It is considered the "leading trade fair for the process industry": Every three years, though delayed by a year due to the pandemic, the "Exhibition Conference for Chemical Engineering" – better known as ACHEMA – takes place in Frankfurt with 2,200 exhibitors from 50 countries. The Technische Hochschule Mittelhessen (THM) is a regular participant, and under the leadership of Prof. Dirk Holtmann from the Department of Life Science Engineering, they will also be present at this year's event from August 22nd to 26th. The focus of THMpresence will be two exhibits by doctoral candidates Alexander Langsdorf and Björn Sabel-Becker. They will present ideas for greater sustainability in the chemical industry. "Being able to present these projects to such a high-caliber, international audience is already a special honor and a great opportunity," says Holtmann.
Langsdorf from the Institute of Bioprocess Engineering and Pharmaceutical Technology is working on alternative utilization methods for green waste within the framework of the project "GreenToGreen – Municipal Green Waste as a Basis for Green Chemistry," funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Project partners include the Technical University of Kaiserslautern and ifn FTZ GmbH. While the more than five million tons of municipal green waste generated annually in Germany are currently mostly composted or processed in biogas plants, "GreenToGreen" aims to utilize it as a raw material for higher-value products in the field of green chemistry. By using biomass as a raw material for basic and fine chemicals, fossil raw materials can be replaced. The various possibilities for increasing the added value of green waste will be showcased at ACHEMA.
The BMBF-funded project “Games – Gas Diffusion Electrodes for Coupled Microbial-Electrochemical Syntheses from CO2” by Sabel-Becker investigates how basic materials for the chemical industry can be efficiently produced from CO2 and electrical energy. The starting point is a gas diffusion electrode where CO2 is reduced to formate, a salt of formic acid, using surplus energy, ideally from renewable sources. The formate can then be used in various biotechnological processes to synthesize valuable materials, such as bio-based plastics, amino acids, flavorings, basic chemicals, or alternative fuels. The project focuses on optimizing these processes and demonstrating that the principle can be applied on an industrial scale.
“These projects demonstrate that there are many ways to make production processes in the chemical industry more sustainable,” says Prof. Holtmann, a member of the Centre of Competence for Sustainable Engineering and Environmental Systems (ZEuUS) at THMApplied Sciences. He and his doctoral students are convinced that this is not only good for the environment, but also for companies' finances in the medium term. They are presenting their exhibits at booths A76 and A74 in Hall 6.0 at the Frankfurt Trade Fair.
Free tickets: Use code A_WcQKSPvX to attend ACHEMA free of charge. This code can be used to create a myACHEMA account at https://www.achema.de/en/for-visitors/tickets to redeem the ticket voucher. The code can be used indefinitely and may be shared with anyone interested.