The chair of Technical Chemistry A consists of two workgroups under the overall direction of Prof. Dr. Arno Behr.
The Workgroup of Prof. Dr. Arno Behr mainly investigates the fields of homogenous and heterogeneous catalysis, focusing on technical chemistry. Classical petrochemicals like butadiene and isoprene are used as starting materials as well as renewable resources (e. g. glycerol, fats, carbohydrates and terpenes). Because carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and hydrogen are important industrial gases, one major target is to use these gases for carboxylation, carbonylation, hydroformylation and hydroaminomethylation with the aforementioned starting materials in order to gain a selective access to aldehydes, amines, acids, carbonates and lactones.
Further fields of interest are homogeneous catalytic reactions like metathesis, oligomerisation, selective hydrogenation, hydrosilylation, oxidation, hydroamination, telomerisation and alkoxylation.
In the context of developing reactions with high technical feasibility, reliable catalyst recycling concepts like the two phase technique are used to recycle the separated transition metal catalysts. Based on results gained from laboratory experiments, chemical processes are designed which finally lead to the construction and operation of continuously operating miniplants.
The second workgroup under guidance of Prof. Dr. Ing. Jakob Jörissen explores electrochemical processes using ion-exchange membranes. The main purpose of investigation is the development and testing of gas-diffusion electrodes to economise on sodium chloride electrolysis. Further fields of research are electroorganic synthesis and salt recycling. The aim is to develop such systems and to scale up plants to a technical scale.
