Hanns Hofmann (chemist)

Hanns Hofmann (born December 18, 1923 in Frankfurt am Main ; † January 4, 2006 ) was a German chemist and professor of chemical reaction engineering at the University of Erlangen .

Career

Hanns Hofmann studied chemistry at the Technical University of Darmstadt and received his doctorate and habilitation in the field of “ chemical technology ”. In 1962 he took over a professorship for chemical technology at the TH Darmstadt. In 1965 he was appointed to the newly founded technical faculty of the University of Erlangen- Nuremberg as the first professor . He played a decisive role in the development of this faculty , of which he was the first official dean in 1967/68. It was thanks to the commitment of Hanns Hofmann that the subject "Chemical Reaction Engineering" was introduced in Germany and Europe. The " Chemical Engineering " course came about through his initiative . The focus of his work lay in the chemical reaction technology , the reactor modeling and catalyst development . Hofmann has authored more than 200 scientific publications and written two important standard textbooks.

From 1988 to 1992 he represented the interests of technical chemistry and chemical engineering on the DECHEMA board, since 1988 as its deputy chairman. Since the mid-1960s, he has headed the DECHEMA working group "Use of electronic computing devices in chemical engineering", which was transformed into a DECHEMA technical committee in 1976 and which provided significant impetus for the introduction of computer applications in chemical engineering.

He has received numerous honors, including the DECHEMA medal . He has received honorary professorships from the Beijing Institute and Tianjin University in China. He received honorary doctorates from the University of Leuven, Belgium, and the University of Toulouse, France . After his retirement in 1992, he maintained numerous scientific contacts with other countries, especially China. Until the beginning of 1998 he held the office of President of the European Federation for Chemical Engineering.

Publications

• Textbook of Technical Chemistry, Vol. 1, Chemical Reaction Technology (paperback); by Manfred Baerns , Hanns Hofmann, Albert Renken; ISBN 3-13-687503-6
• Introduction to optimization. With application examples from the chemical engineering being; by Ulrich Hoffmann, Hanns Hofmann; ISBN 3-527-25340-8