Plant and Process Design

Welcome to the Laboratory of Plant and Process Design. The group has been established in October 2005 under the direction of Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gerhard Schembecker within the Department of Biochemical and Chemical Engineering of the TU Dortmund.

Our research focuses on innovative and sustainable downstream processing for the purification of chemical and biotechnological products. The technologies under research include Centrifugal Partition Chromatography (CPC), Continuous Centrifugal Extraction (CCE) and Continuous Crystallization. Different innovative crystallizer concepts like the slug flow crystallizer (SFC), Archimedes Tube crystallizer (ATC) or Taylor Couette crystallizer (TCC) are developed and optimized. Continuous particle isolation within the patented Continuous Vacuum Screw FIlter (CVSF) complete the crystal process chain resulting in free-flowing particles. Our aim is also to make a contribution to the circular economy, for example by dealing with the treatment of waste water or the recycling of waste products.

Our processes can be used in a wide range of industrial sectors such as biotechnology or the pharmaceutical/fine chemicals industry and are not limited to specific products, as we develop a fundamental understanding of the processes involved.

The Laboratory of Plant and Process Design is involved in teaching on the topics of plants and processes, steady state simulation, technical chromatography and crystallization for the Bachelor and Master programs of the Department of Bichemical and Chemical Engineering.