2024 Arnold Eucken Medal for Hans-Jörg Bart, RPTU Kaiserslautern
As part of the annual meeting of the DECHEMA/VDI Extraction Division, on February 14, Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. techn. Hans-Jörg Bart, RPTU University Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU), awarded the Arnold Eucken Medal, established in 1956 by the Research Society for Process Engineering (GVT). This award recognizes his outstanding scientific work in thermal process engineering.
Hans-Jörg Bart’s research activities encompass methods in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for multiphase flow and extraction, heat transfer, measurement technology, adsorption, and chromatography. He has published his work in over 650 publications and patents, 50 book chapters and monographs, and numerous conference papers. Having supervised over 100 doctoral students and postdocs, he has made significant contributions to the development of the next generation of scientists; five of his doctoral students have gone on to become professors. Professor Barth has volunteered on numerous committees, commissions, and editorial boards of several academic journals.
Hans-Jörg Bart studied chemical engineering at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) and, after completing his doctorate and postdoctoral fellowship, took up a position as an associate professor in 1988. From 1989 to 1995, he headed the Christian Doppler Laboratory for “Modeling of Reactive Systems in Process Engineering.” After a visiting professorship at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA, he accepted an appointment in 1994 as Professor of Thermal Process Engineering in the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering at RPTU (then TU Kaiserslautern).
Among other honors, he received a Senior Fellowship from the Christian Doppler Society in Vienna, an honorary professorship at Kunming University in China, and the Emil Kirschbaum Medal in 2021.
The Arnold Eucken Medal
In accordance with the award criteria, this medal “honors achievements that are far above average and have gained recognition not only among domestic experts but also internationally.” The achievements must be in the field of process engineering, its fundamentals, or related areas; they may concern both technical development and the expansion of scientific foundations and teaching. In keeping with Eucken’s legacy, special attention is also to be given to achievements that bridge engineering and chemistry.”
Arnold Eucken headed the Göttingen Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry, founded by Nernst, from 1930 to 1950. His work as the first chair of the VDI Technical Committee on Process Engineering and the numerous textbooks he authored mark the beginning of the development of the scientific foundations of chemical process engineering in Germany in the 1930s.
The Arnold Eucken Medal was first awarded in 1956 and has since been awarded 24 times, most recently in 2021.
Source: Press release from DECHEMA Society for Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology e.V.