Our team, led by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Andreas Kempf, Apl. Prof. Dr. Khadijeh Mohri, and Dr.-Ing. Irenäus Wlokas, develops and tests methods for the simulation, measurement, and optimization of reactive flows, flames, and detonations in facilities such as chemical reactors, gas turbine combustion chambers, hydrogen systems, piston engines, and iron direct reduction plants. Our methods shorten development times, minimize pollutants, and offer deep insights into processes and physics, enabling the development of cost-efficient, flexible, and safe facilities with significantly reduced emissions.

The complex processes in synthesis and combustion plants require a detailed numerical description of reaction and transport processes. Through simulations, we gain insights into areas inaccessible to measurement techniques, investigate isolated subprocesses and their interactions, and bridge the gap between laboratory and industrial scales. To achieve this, we develop and implement numerical models and methods for describing and simulating turbulent combustion of multiphase flows and reaction kinetics.

Our tomographic measurement techniques, developed at our institute, allow us to capture the dynamics of complex, three-dimensional flows of gases and liquids without disturbing the process.

Our work is funded by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK), the German Federation of Industrial Research Associations (AiF), national and international high-performance computing centers, and numerous companies in the fields of installation, power plant, and plant engineering.

At the University of Duisburg-Essen, our group is closely networked with the groups of CENIDE (Center for Nano-Integration Duisburg-Essen), NETZ (Nano Energy Technology Center), ZBT (Center for Fuel Cell Technology), and CCSS (Center for Computational Sciences and Simulation). As a member of EMPI, we provide detailed simulation results and utilize essential data from the experiments of partner groups.

Studying at our institute imparts competencies in flow simulation, the description of reacting flows, turbulence modeling, and numerical methods.