Prof. Dr.-Ing. Hannsjörg Freund

Catalytic Reactors and Process Technology – Research Area D

Hannsjörg Freund joined the FAU as W2 Professor for Catalytic Reactors and Process Technology at the Institute of Chemical Reaction Engineering in January 2012 as a recipient of the EAM Award which provides a 750,000 EUR research grant. He is member of the EAM Executive Board and Speaker of EAMs Graduate School “Advanced Materials and Processes”. He was appointed Chair of the Process Development Division Area “Process Intensification” of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) in 2013 and Member of the Advisory Board of the ProcessNet Reaction Engineering Division in 2015. The focus of his research is on the model-based design of optimal chemical reactors for highly efficient processes. For this purpose, he combines methods and tools of conceptual process design, analysis and optimization with detailed simulations for the computer-aided catalyst support design, complemented by key experiments for data retrieval, phenomenological analysis, and validation purposes.

Prof. Freund studied Chemical Engineering at the FAU. Till 2005 he carried out his PhD research in Erlangen under the supervision of Prof. G. Emig. In 2005 he joined the Physical and Chemical Process Engineering Department (Prof. K. Sundmacher) at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems in Magdeburg. He established his research group in the field of process intensification with special focus on the model-based design of catalytic reactors and integrated processes. In addition, he was a lecturer at both the University of Magdeburg and the International Max Planck Research School. During his research stay at the State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering in Shanghai in 2010, he was a guest lecturer at the East China University of Science and Technology.

Important awards include the Chemical Engineering Science “Most Cited Paper 2003-2006” and “Top Cited Papers 2011-2012” award, the Hanns Hofmann Award of the ProcessNet Reaction Engineering Division in 2010 and the above-mentioned EAM “Erlangen Excellence in Engineering of Advanced Materials Award” in 2011.