Birgit Kamm

Birgit Kamm (born July 10, 1962 in Eisenhüttenstadt (Brandenburg), née Kapahnke) is a German chemist and honorary professor for chemistry and technology of biogenic raw materials at the Dresden University of Technology and for bio-refinery technology at the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus .

Live and act

After attending elementary school in Eisenhüttenstadt, Kamm was a student at the Eisenhüttenstadt grammar school from 1977 to 1979. 1979 to 1981 attended the special chemistry classes at the Technical University of Merseburg (TH Merseburg) and studied chemistry there from 1981 to 1986, interrupted by a research internship at the Leuna-Werke . In 1985/86 Kamm wrote her diploma thesis (topic: "α-Hydroxylation of ketones by means of stable nitrogen radical cations") at the TH Merseburg (today: Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg ) in the work group of Manfred Schulz . 1990 comb was as an academic student of Egon Fanghänel at TH Merseburg PhD - Thesis: "Synthesis and properties of long wavelength absorbing acceptor substituted diazonium salts." Kamm then worked at the Institute for Polymer Chemistry Teltow-Seehof, in the Ministry of Science, Research and Culture of the State of Brandenburg and at the University of Potsdam , where she mainly dealt with bio-organic syntheses, renewable raw materials , and biodegradable polymers. During this time he also spent time abroad at the South Jutland University Center Esbjerg (Denmark) and the University of Nebraska (USA). Kamm has headed the Green Biorefinery working group since 1997 and completed his habilitation - funded by the German Federal Environmental Foundation - at the University of Potsdam. Subject of the habilitation thesis: "New approaches in synthetic organic chemistry - linking biological and chemical metabolism using the example of the biorefinery basic products lactic acid and carnitine."

Since 1998, Kamm has been a member of the board of the Research Institute Bioactive Polymersystems eV (BIOPOS); after joining the Bio-Organic Synthesis Chemistry research group (2001), she is its scientific director.

research

Bio-refinery technology, particularly sustainable ecological bio-refinery concepts and systems, bio-refinery processes and products. Biorefineries combine the necessary technologies between the biological raw materials and the industrial intermediate and end products. Among other things, this involves the fractionation of biomass and the production of semi-finished and end products.

Publications and patents

Birgit Kamm has published over 70 scientific papers in specialist journals. She is also the inventor or co-inventor of 18 patents. She also worked as the editor of three books and is co-editor of two scientific journals. She is the author of the Römpp Chemical Lexicon and published numerous specialist articles on bio-based products and biorefineries on the Internet.

Web links

• Homepage of Birgit Kamm
• Conference and symposia network Biorefinica
• Co-author of the Biorefineries Roadmap

literature

• Birgit Kamm, Patrick R. Gruber, Michael Kamm: Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry . Wiley-VCH Verlag & Co. KGaA, 2006, ISBN 978-3-527-31027-2 , chapter Biorefineries-Industrial Processes and Products . An online version was published in 2008, and a softcover version ISBN 978-3-527-32953-3 was published by Wiley-VCH in 2010 . An updated version appeared in 2016 in Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry , doi : 10.1002 / 14356007.l04_l01.pub2 , pp. 1–38.
• Birgit Kamm (Ed.): Microorganisms in Biorefineries (=  Microbiology Monographs . Volume 26 ). Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg 2015, ISBN 978-3-662-52441-1 .