Description of the institution
DBFZs mission is to support the efficient integration of biomass as a valuable resource for sustainable energy supply. The development of new processes, methods and concepts takes place in close cooperation with business partners and research facilities. In this way, research networks between industry and science are also initiated and promoted. More than 220 researchers as well as technical and laboratory staff are working at DBFZ with regard to research targets such as (i) sustainability assessment, (ii) innovative bioenergy sources, (iii) energy needsbased technologies and (iv) monitoring. Bioenergy systems and Biorefineries Departments have a comprehensive know how and expertise on analysis and assessment issues for biorefinery concepts.
Role in the project
DBFZ will contribute to GRAIL with the following main tasks of (i) evaluating the available potentials on glycerol in Europe and globally, (ii) analysing raw material supply chains, (iii) flow sheet balancing of concepts for the glycerol conversion processes and (iv) LCA and LCC for the biofuels and the green chemicals pathways.
The key personnel involved in GRAIL consist of highly skilled scientists with complementary expertise on analytics, engineering, modelling/balancing and assessing aspects of biofuels and biorefinery technologies. All of them have experiences in national and international research projects (cf. References below). Moreover, they have been and are involved in different committees (e.g.European Biofuels Technology Platform, IEA Biofuels Roadmap Expert Group.
Key personnel
Dr. Franziska Müller-Langer is head of the Biorefineries Department at DBFZ since 2008; before she worked as team leader and project manager at the Institute for Energy and Environment. Her background is in mechanical engineering with focus on energy technologies at the TU Bergakademie Freiberg. She did her doctor grade at the TU Hamburg-Harburg. Moreover she got working experiences form e.g. Siemens Power Generation, Erlangen, and Laboratory of Applied Thermodynamics at the University of Thessaloniki (Greece). She has comprehensive expertise from national and international projects (e.g. BioNORM, RENEW, BioSNG, TOSCA, Star-COLIBRI, KACELLE) with special emphasis on current and future biofuels and technology assessments.
Arne Gröngröft graduated in Energy and Environmental Technology at the University of Technology. With his background as a process engineer he leads a working group on biofuels and biorefinery technologies. Within this group the advancement of biofuel production facilities to integrated biorefineries is the main research topic. Recent activities are: contributions to national research project “Bioraffinerie2021” on integrated bioethanol production systems, assessment of biokerosene production within “burnFAIR” project, member of “aireg” initiative’s working group on biokerosene production,participation in elaborating “Biorefineries Roadmap” for Ministry of Agriculture.
Stephanie Hauschild graduated in Renewable Raw Materials and Regenerative Energy at the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus. She is working as a scientist at DBFZ in Leipzig since 2013 with the focus on the production of biofuels from biobased oils and fats. By participating in various German and EU projects she strengthened her expertise in the area of mass and energy balances. As the technical contact of the DBFZ within the project GRAIL she is coordinating the scientific work of the DBFZ with all partners.
André Brosowski joined DBFZ as a research scientist in 2011 and holds a Diploma in Geography from the University of Leipzig. His work is focused on biomass potentials and sustainability aspects as well as biomass supply concepts. His activities are concentrated on calculations of regional, national and international biomass potentials especially in the field of wastes and residues. As part of the economic assessment for different biomass conversion plants he is also involved in the determination of biomass provision cost. He is an expert in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and contributed to the European research project KACELLE and various national and international projects.
Franziska Hartmann graduated in Chemistry at the University of Leipzig. With her background as an analyst with focus on organic trace analysis she joined the group fuel characterization / engine test beds in the department Biorefineries at DBFZ in 2009. The focus of her work is analytical characterization of biofuels, raw materials, main- and by-products of research biofuel production processes. For novel fuel processes she is involved in identification of intermediates and products as well as the development of suitable detection methods.
Dr. Kathleen Meisel joined DBFZ as a research scientist in 2010. She holds a Diploma in Geography and obtained a doctorate in the field of environmental assessments. At DBFZ she primarily conducts life cycle assessments of biofuels and other bioenergy pathways. The aim of her work is to compare different pathways with each other and with reference systems as a basis for decision-makers and to identify optimization potentials. Her activities range from preparing greenhouse gas balances of a specific biofuel to assessing the sustainability of bioenergy. Mrs. Meisel contributed to the European research projects KACELLE and Star COLIBRI.
Konstantin Zech joined DBFZ as a research scientist in 2010 and holds a Diploma in Business Engineering from KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology). The focus of his work lies on the economic assessment of biofuel processes (e.g. hydrogen, lignocellulosic ethanol or pyrolysis oils). Main objectives include the determination of investment amounts and production costs, the estimation of cost-deprecation through experience curves, the assessment of economic performance and the identification of optimization potentials. Further research interest consider the policy-dependent behavior of markets, especially that of agricultural commodity markets. European research projects he coordinates KACELLE within DBFZ and contributes to TOSCA and Star-COLIBRI.