PMV introduces itself

The chair of Paper Technology and Mechanical Process Engineering introduces itself. Get to know our profile, current media reports and the more than 100-year history of the institute.

History

PMV @ Media

Paper is a fascinating material. This field offers a wide variety of interesting and interdisciplinary problems for research. For this reason, the Institute of Paper Technology was founded in 1905. Among the more recent fields of research “new materials from bio-based and renewable resources” is exciting and promising. With our know-how and experience of paper technology, we see very good opportunities to contribute to the development of sustainable bio-based engineering materials for a wide field of applications.

We utilize the creative and inspiring environment of our university, which is one of the leading universities in Germany and contributes to the simulation of interdisciplinary projects and new ideas.

We invite you to learn more about our institute and we are happy to discuss your ideas and suggestions.

Things to know about the PMV (from 2019, availability only on german)
Things to know about the PMV (from 2019, availability only on german)

Our institute is unique among university institutes in Germany due to its specialist field on paper technology. This industry branch today is quiet exciting since the paper industry knows about future challenges and possibilities and has adopted the “CEPI roadmap 2050” 1 as a concept for its conversion into a bio economy with low carbon consumption – as the first branch of industry. We feel committed to this concept and support the following objectives in many of our projects:

- Resource efficiency,

- Energy efficiency,

- Product efficiency and

- Focus on products with high added value

The aspects of our research activities are

Recycling:

The improvement of recovered paper recycling towards a specific utilization of fractions of this material, the development of paper products for optimized recyclability and the improvement of processes for paper recycling. One of our focus areas here is the improvement of separation technologies for separating different types of particles in a dry state or suspension from a recovered paper mixture.

Protection of the environment:

With the chemical competence in our team, we work on projects for improving environmental aspects of paper production and paper recycling as well as avoiding pollution of the environment or by additives in paper products and questions of consumer protection, for instance by utilization of paper food packaging.

Paper physics and metrology:

Measurement technology is an elementary component of paper physics. Today's sensor technology opens up new, deeper insights into paper structures and production processes. Typical questions deal with the evaluation of pulp, paper, and board as well as their products and behavior in the paper cycle. This includes, for example, fiber analyses, paper tests, and recyclability investigations.

Innovative, fiber-based products:

Increasing interest can be seen for our projects for developing new or improved fiber-based engineering materials for packagings, for composite materials with applications in lightweight construction or completely new developments.

Here we utilize our know-how in treatment, engineering and handling of fiber materials, quiet often in interdisciplinary projects.

Interdisciplinary cooperation stimulates creative and innovative ideas. We have a large network within the TU Darmstadt and, within the paper industry in Germany, Europe and even worldwide. We cooperate actively in the cluster of paper research (CPF) in Germany, in organizations like ZELLCHEMING and our large personal networks. The interdisciplinary work starts for our students in the first semester with the project course “Introduction to mechanical engineering”. This is a one week project with participants from social and engineering sciences where an actual problem with significant relevance for our society is treated. By this, we can create a good basis for the qualification of future employees and we create a network which enables working in many and different projects. We set the value on a good balance between disciplinary and interdisciplinary projects as well as between fundamental and application-oriented work.

We are educating by modern course program engineers which can take responsibility for our future society, create innovation and master their challenges successfully. For Ph.D. and doctoral students from Germany and abroad we offer intensive service and support, a wide spectrum of national and international projects and an excellent research infrastructure.

We are an independent and flexible partner for research and development projects as well as for services for all problems related to paper and natural fiber materials. With our excellent equipment including pilot facilities for paper recycling and our staff´s expertise and know-how, we are happy to work on.

Video Introduction