Spokesperson: Prof. Andreas Liese, andreas.liese(a)tuhh.de
Deputy Spokesperson: Prof. Patrick Huber, patrick.huber(a)tuhh.de
The world is facing significant challenges such as climate change, depletion of fossil resources, dwindling biodiversity, and currently pandemics. To meet these challenges, new technologies are needed to produce the energy and materials we use in everyday life, from food and pharmaceuticals to clothing, digital devices and building materials. In this context, new future technologies must be developed that are CO2-neutral or even CO2-reducing and are based on renewable raw materials and renewable energies. A particular challenge here is the geoglobal and seasonal variation of biological raw materials. This requires new, smart chemical and biotechnological process technologies that autonomously adapt to fluctuating raw material quality. Many of the innovative technologies or reactor concepts required for this (e.g. self-healing or autonomous reactors) are only made possible by the use of novel materials. This requires new material concepts, which in particular enable sustainable, raw material-saving materials management, energy conversion and storage, and thus also mobility.
In the research field Advanced Materials & (Bio) Processes, the focus is balanced between basic research and application. In order to address the aforementioned global challenges, interdisciplinary research and development is carried out at the interfaces between the classic disciplines of process engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and biotechnology. The development of the fundamentals for the production of multiscale, multifunctional, hybrid and integrated material systems starting from nanoscale structures enables the production of technologically novel base materials. An essential aspect of the research activities is the scalability and structuring of materials by means of self-assembly and additive processes. This opens up possibilities for the development of completely new reactor concepts, which opens up flexible and autonomous processing of, among other things, renewable raw materials using regenerative energies. This can only be achieved with a deeper understanding of the process, the development of innovative materials and structures, high-resolution measurement and analysis techniques, and accurate models and methods for optimal design and process control. Progressive digitalization in the form of "cyberphysical systems" is enabling innovative reactor technologies, which, using artificial intelligence, can adapt autonomously to locally changing process conditions and thus always operate in the optimum state with maximum yield and selectivity with regard to the desired product.
The goal of the research field Advanced Materials & (Bio) Processes is to develop the fundamentals, technologies and materials for establishing a circular economy, especially for the production of fuels, medicines, foodstuffs, fertilizers, chemicals, plastics and modern functional materials for system technologies such as optics, energy conversion and storage.
