Chemical Micro Process Engineering

Volker Hessel, born 1964, was appointed Vice Director R&D and Head of the Chemical Process Development Department at the Institut für Mikrotechnik Mainz GmbH (IMM) in 2002. The development areas of his department encompass the fields of mixing and reaction engineering, process and engineering and heterogeneous catalysis, and electrochemical processes. In 1999 he became Head of the newly founded Department of Microreaction Technology, the predecessor organization of the above mentioned department. In 1996, he was appointed Group Leader for Microreaction Technology. In 1994, he joined the IMM as an employee, He obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Mainz in the field of organic chemistry in 1993, investigating structure-property relations of supramolecular structures. His is author of more than 70 publications in the field of organic chemistry and chemical micro process engineering and 15 patents. Steffen Hardt, born 1966, was appointed Head of the Fluidics & Simulation Department at Institut für Mikrotechnik Mainz GmbH (IMM) in 2001. He joined IMM in 1997 as an employee and became Group Leader for modeling and simulation in 1999. The activities of his department are centred around the development and simulation of micro fluids systems. Among his areas of interest are fluidic actuators, multi-phase micro flows, micro mixers, gas-phase reactors and Lab-on-a-Chip systems. Before he became involved in micro fluidics, he worked in the field of theoretical elementary particle physics. He studied physics at the University of Giessen and the University of Washington/Seattle and obtained his Ph.D. with a thesis on quark models. He is author of more than 30 publications in the field of microfluidics, modeling, and theoretical physics and 10 patents. Holger Löwe, born in 1953, was appointed Director R&D at Institut für Mikrotechnik Mainz GmbH (Imm) in 1999. Prior, he was head of the Chemistry/Microreaction Technology Department, after being Group Leader of the Electrochemsitry Group. In 1991, he joined the IMM as an employee. In 1984, he moved to the Faculty of Electrochemistry at the Technical College in Ilmenau. There he was Head of the chemical sector at the internal college. Also in 1984, he attained his Ph.D. on alkylation of phenols. From 1977 to 1984, he worked as Research Group Leader at the Filmfabrik Wolffen. He studied chemistry at the University of Leipzig. He is author of more than 280 publications and 30 patents.