Hermann Nirschl

Prof. Hermann Nirschl studied Food Engineering at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) where he received his Ph.D. and habilitation. After his academic education which also allowed him to extend his research at the University of California in Davis, USA, he was head of Process and Apparatus Engineering for the 3M company. In 2003 he moved to the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). His work is deeply involved in particle technology with a special focus on separation techniques, particle characterisation and simulation methods.  

The research group ’process machines’ of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology deals with particle production or particle processing in the liquid phase. The focus of the work is on filtration, centrifugation as well as mixing technology and agglomeration. For a holistic view of the materials examined, characterization technologies (like µCT, NMR or SAXS)and simulation methods (as DEM, CFD, Lattice Boltzmann, flow sheet simulation or AI) are used to map digital process chains which helps to design new machines and devices with the focus on improving specific goals such as raw material and energy efficiency in use. In the last years the research is directed into the field of autonomous processes where the digital tools are directly used to interact with and to control the processes.