Environmental and Process Engineering

Profile

 

With its ”Environmental and Process Engineering“ business division, Fraunhofer IKTS provides materials, technologies and systems to make converting materials and energies efficient, environmentally compatible and climate-friendly. The focus is on processes in the field of conventional and bioenergies, strategies and methods for keeping the soil, water and air clean and for recovering valuable raw materials from residual waste materials. Many approaches aim for closed material cycles.

Fraunhofer IKTS is one of the leading research institutions worldwide with regard to material separation technology using ceramic materials. Material, technology, and process expertise are all intertwined, thus enabling the development of complex process engineering systems for energy-efficient separation processes, chemical conversion and the recovery of valuable materials. Ceramic membranes, filters, adsorbents and catalysts of Fraunhofer IKTS play a vital role in gas processing and water treatment. Furthermore, ceramic membrane methods are combined with innovative materials to produce novel reactor concepts to make process engineering methods more efficient.

Process engineering know-how regarding the comminution, disintegration and mixing of biogenic substrates is another core competence of Fraunhofer IKTS in the field of biochemical and thermochemical biomass conversion. It allows to convert agricultural residual waste materials to solid, liquid and gaseous energy carriers. It also makes it possible to process nutrients from liquid manure, dung and fermentation products to retain transportable and storable fertilizer products with defined properties.

Numerous lab and pilot plants are used to model, validate and optimize fluidic, electrochemical and thermomechanical characteristics for material transport processes and reactions.
With the high number of labs and technical centers, as well as the application centers for membrane technology and bioenergy, the business division possesses the ideal infrastructure for realizing projects of the most varied volumes and scales. The results are used directly in demonstration plants, which can be built at the clients’ sites and operated by Fraunhofer IKTS.