Moderation:Wolfgang Gerhartz
No life without energy. For thousands of years, mankind only used muscle power (including slaves), renewable raw materials, hydropower and wind energy as energy sources. However, the amount of energy available was always limited. This changed dramatically after it became possible to exploit the seemingly unlimited fossil fuels of coal, oil and natural gas. However, the excessive utilisation of these sources has now changed the composition of the Earth's atmosphere to such an extent that serious global climatic changes must be expected. The lecture will show the dimensions that need to be overcome in the global transition from a fossil fuel-based to a sustainable energy system and the developments that have taken place both globally and in Germany since the "first edition" of the lecture in 2021.
Zoom: Meeting-ID 837 2713 6354 Identification code 664407
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83727136354?pwd=ch7wHuGFDhaaZBPo1P4fOuXVRElC5V.1
Moderation: N.N.
Language and sound are the basis of communication and information transfer. It was not until the end of the 19th century that Thomas Alva Edison's phonograph made it possible for the first time to store sounds and make them audible again. The principle is based on the conversion of sound waves into a mechanical image as a storage medium. Also at the end of the 19th century, Oberlin Smith was the first to propose storing sound waves in a magnetisation pattern on the surface of a permanent magnetic material. This technology only became successful when the magnetophone tape and the associated recording devices were developed by BASF in co-operation with AEG in the 1930s. 100 years after Oberlin Smith's publication, the market penetration of audio cassettes (Walkman) and the VHS video cassette reached its peak. In the meantime, other digital technologies have displaced magnetic tape from the market, with CD, DVD and MP3 formats dominating instead. However, this does not apply to large data centres, where magnetic tape is still indispensable for storing backup copies.
Moderation: Klaus-Peter Jäckel
The German chemical and pharmaceutical industry currently accounts for around 4.2% of the global market (VCI). Its carbon-containing products are predominantly manufactured from the energy sources oil (72%) and gas (14%). As much as 13% of the products are based on renewable raw materials. Coal plays practically no role, accounting for less than 2%. In total, the German chemical industry uses around 20 million tonnes of organic raw materials. The chemical industry is an energy-intensive sector; the most important energy sources are gas and electricity.
The chemical industry's raw materials have been and are constantly being adapted. At the beginning of the 19th century, wood was the raw material. Later, coal changed the entire industry and growth accelerated. After 1945, oil became the globally dominant raw material. Currently, however, coal is (re)gaining importance in China and gas in the USA in particular. The presentation will explain the criteria used to select the raw material base at different locations. Technical processes for utilising all raw materials are known.The chemical industry is the third largest industrial emitter of CO2 on a global scale after steel and cement with a share of 8%. The key to reducing this share will be the availability of "green" electricity and hydrogen without an atmospheric CO2 backpack. Increasing the amount of carbon used from renewable raw materials is coming up against ecological limits.Moderation: Klaus-Dieter Jany
No life without energy. For thousands of years, renewable raw materials, hydropower and wind energy were the only sources of energy for the development of mankind. However, despite increasingly efficient utilisation, the amount of energy available was always limited. This changed dramatically after James Watt's steam engine made it possible to exploit seemingly unlimited coal reserves. Later, oil and natural gas extraction technologies were added. The excessive utilisation of these sources has now changed the composition of the earth's atmosphere to such an extent that serious climatic changes must be expected globally. The presentation shows the dimensions that need to be addressed in the global transition from a fossil fuel-based to a sustainable energy system.
Moderation: Klaus-Dieter Jany
Heterogeneous catalysts are the backbone of modern petrochemistry. Their successful development requires the close co-operation of a large number of technical and scientific disciplines: Inorganic solid-state chemistry, surface science, chemical reaction engineering and, last but not least, solid-state process engineering for reproducible production on an industrial scale. The aim of every development is a catalyst that selectively produces the desired product from the input materials over as many years as possible, whereby this can be achieved with very different reactor types. The latter in turn determine the external shape of the catalyst. In the course of over a hundred years of development history, a gradual transition from purely empirical to increasingly rational catalyst design can be observed. However, even today the complex multi-scale phenomenon of heterogeneous catalysis can only be fully described theoretically for a few simple model reactions.