Volker Hessel
Institut für Mikrotechnik Mainz GmbH, Germany

Presentation: "Micro Process Engineering for Fine Chemicals and Fuel Processing"

Prof. Dr. Volker Hessel, born 1964, studied chemistry at Mainz University. He got the PhD level in the field of organic chemistry in 1993. The topic of his PhD thesis was structure-property relationships of special supra-molecular structures, micelles and lyotropic liquid crystals, constructed by so-called bi- or multi-polar amphiphiles with rigid core unit.

Since 1994 Prof. Dr. Hessel is an employee of the Institut für Mikrotechnik Mainz GmbH and since 1996 he became group leader for microreaction technology. In 1999 he was appointed Head of the Microreaction Technology Department, formed at that time, meanwhile named Chemical Process Technology. His fields of research comprise micro process engineering for mixing, fine chemistry, fuel processing and heterogeneous catalysis. In 2002 Prof. Dr. Hessel was appointed Vice Director R&D at IMM and in 2007 as Director R&D at IMM.

Prof. Dr. Hessel is author or co-author of 129 peer-reviewed publications (with 22 extended reviews) and 160 conference papers with regard to chemical micro process engineering, one respective chapter in Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, 11 book chapters, and 3 books.

In July 2005, Prof. Dr. Hessel was appointed as part-time professor for the chair of "Micro Process Engineering" at Eindhoven University of Technology, TU/e. This professorship is under the umbrella of the Chemical Reactor Engineering group of Prof. Dr.ir. Jaap Schouten in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry. In October 2007, Prof. Dr. Hessel received an adjunct professorship at Technical University of Darmstadt. Prof. Dr. Hessel received the AIChE award "Excellence in Process Development Research" in 2007.

A.o. Prof. Dr. Hessel is AIChE chair (US) "Microprocess Engineering"; elected board member of the German industrial platform IP VT; member of the editorial boards of "Catalysis Today", "Chemical Engineering Journal", "Chemical Engineering Technology", "Recent Patents on Chemical Engineering", and "Current Organic Chemistry"; Topical chair at AIChE Spring conferences 2006+2007 and organising committee member of the "Process Intensification and Miniaturization" symposia held at CHISA-6 and at ECCE-6 (EPIC) as well as chair of the program committees of the "Conference on Smart Synthesis and Technologies for Organic Processes (SynTOP)" and the "International Conference on Microreaction Technology 10" (IMRET-10).