Chair of Bioseparation Engineering

Designing separation techniques and new process concepts are becoming increasingly important in the field of bioproduct processing and bioanalytics. In the era of industrial (white) biotechnology and red biotechnology, biotechnological processes are producing ever larger quantities of high- and low-molecular-weight products, some of which must later be available in the highest purities, depending on the application. Due to the enormous processing costs compared to the total costs, increasingly efficient separation techniques must be developed to fully exploit the potential of biotechnology.

The Professorship of Bioseparation Engineering teaches and conducts research on new methods of downstream processing and its process intensification. The possibilities of strain and media development (upstream processing) are considered in an interdisciplinary way.

In process development, the focus is on new separation methods such as high-gradient magnetic separation and potential-controlled separation. In addition to process engineering, we systematically investigate the synthesis and functionalization of various support materials and their interfacial interactions. We also optimize selective interactions employing molecular biological/biochemical methods, among others.

Our group experiments in laboratories equipped for molecular biology, biochemistry, microbiology as well as chemical work and offers good conditions for developing processes. Classical process engineering facilities for cell disruption, filtration, crystallization and preparative chromatography are available for research and teaching. For this purpose, chemists, chemical engineers, biotechnologists and biologists work together in a strongly interdisciplinary team and cooperate with scientific and industrial partners.