Matthias Johannink appointed Professor of Thermodynamics and Sustainable Material Cycles

Tour through Germany for teaching, research and industry  

Born in Duisburg, Johannink grows up in the district town of Nordhorn on the Dutch border and is drawn to Hamburg to study process engineering at the Technical University and to the Universitat Politécnica de Valencia in Spain for a study abroad semester, completing his degree in 2008. Process engineering obviously appeals to the student, because after extensive research and scientific publications, he finishes his doctorate at the Chair of Process Engineering at RWTH Aachen University in 2016 with the title "Model-based and experimental analysis of transient electrodialysis processes".

From the far north via the wild west, he moves on to the deep south in 2017: Johannink becomes process engineer at Linde AG in Munich. There, he develops processes for technical gas separation, focusing in particular on modelling, simulation and process design. From 2020, he analyses and optimises processes in production in the chemical industry at BASF in the Rhineland and plans investment projects for the company as project operations manager.

Agenda

Johannink sees thermodynamics as an important subject area that provides students with a fundamental understanding of many technical and scientific processes. For energy conversion or material conversion, it forms the framework for systematic description and modelling. This enables the evaluation of efficiencies or efficiencies in the development of new technologies or the optimisation of existing processes. The specialist area is therefore particularly relevant for the transformation to a climate-neutral industry and society. Against this background, it is also important to him to prepare students in the best possible way for their future professional practice in a digitalised and networked world.

Taking a breather?

Taking a break doesn't seem to be an option for the process engineer: in his free time, he takes one of his bikes (one for every road surface and every weather condition) out of the garage and scrambles up the mountains, does his laps in the swimming pool, rides through the waves on his surfboard or does something with his family.