Wolf-Dieter Deckwer

Wolf-Dieter Deckwer (2005)

Wolf-Dieter Deckwer (born August 3, 1941 in Finsterwalde , Brandenburg , † October 4, 2006 in Oldenburg ) was a German chemist .

Life

Deckwer spent his childhood in Brandenburg and Hessen . After graduating from high school, he began studying chemistry at the Technical University of Berlin . 1973 Deckwer became a Doctor of Science doctorate , followed in 1975 by the habilitation at the TU Berlin, Mentor was each Herbert Kölbel . Deckwer worked there as a private lecturer until 1976 . Deckwer accepted a professorship for technical chemistry at the University of Hanover in 1976. In the meantime, he was visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh ( USA ). From 1981 to 1986, Deckwer developed the subject of technical chemistry at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg as the first-time professor . Since 1986, Deckwer worked as head of the bioprocess engineering department at the Society for Biotechnological Research (now Helmholtz Center for Infection Research ) in Braunschweig- Stöckheim and as a professor at the Technical University of Braunschweig .

Deckwer's marriage to his wife Monika resulted in two sons, a physicist and a chemist.

Act

His scientific work includes over 400 publications. The scientific field in which Deckwer worked was strikingly diverse. In Berlin he worked on bubble column reactors and the absorption of isobutene in sulfuric acid . In Hanover, Deckwer continued his research on multiphase reactors, now dealing with gas solubility in fermentation media , the immobilization of enzymes for biotechnological applications, the chlorination of toluene and modern variants of the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis . Another exotic research topic was the treatment of wastewater from nuclear reactors. The experimental work on Fischer-Tropsch and methanol synthesis was continued in Oldenburg . Deckwer hosted several Alexander von Humboldt Foundation scholarship holders (E. Alper, Turkey; KDP Nigam, India; Stanislaw Ledakowicz, Poland; Ahmed Zaidi, Morocco). Deckwer was an excellent academic teacher.

At the Society for Biotechnological Research (GBF), Deckwer researched integrated bioprocess engineering , microbial and animal cell cultures, environmentally related biotechnology and the production of chemicals from renewable raw materials. Deckwer was a pioneer in these fields.

His academic students include Professors Adrian Schumpe , Christoph Wittmann (both TU Braunschweig) and An-Ping Zeng ( Technical University Hamburg-Harburg ).

Works

• Wolf-Dieter Deckwer: Reaction technology in bubble columns. Salle, Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 978-3-79-355540-7 .
• Wolf-Dieter Deckwer: Bubble Column Reactions. John Wiley & Sons, 1992, ISBN 978-0-47-191811-0 .
• Wolf-Dieter Deckwer and Horst Schütte: Bioprocessing. Wiley-VCH, 2002, ISBN 978-3-52-730177-5 .
• Wolf-Dieter Deckwer: Biochemical Engineering. Wiley-VCH, 2003, ISBN 978-3-52-730445-5 .