PhD THESIS (IWT Graz)

Purpose and Background:

Biomass micro-CHP systems are currently almost exclusively implemented as fixed-bed gasifiers with gas engines, as they offer comparatively high electrical efficiencies. However, a significant drawback is their limited fuel flexibility compared to combustion-based systems. For this reason, Pewag Engineering is developing a combustion-based micro-CHP system specifically designed for cost-effective biogenic residual materials from agriculture and forestry.

As part of this dissertation at the Institute for Thermodynamics and Thermal Engineering (IWT), a step-by-step development and optimization of the technology will be carried out using CFD simulations with ANSYS Fluent and process simulations with IPSEpro, in parallel with experiments conducted by Pewag on a test facility.

The results of CFD simulations focusing on flow, combustion, pollutant formation, and thermal management of the boiler will be incorporated into the progressive development and optimization of the system, starting from a basic concept. Simultaneously, the impact of the modified process parameters, such as air surplus and useful heat output, on the overall process will be evaluated using process simulations. The findings will be continuously verified experimentally in collaboration with Pewag, with support from the IWT for selected experiments.

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Contact: Dr. Robert Scharler

 PAID DIPLOMA / MASTER’S THESIS (Lenzing Group)

Purpose and Background:

The Master Thesis puts focus on the standard technology used within the Lenzing group for regenerative CS2 adsorption from “lean gas” (CS2 concentration up to LEL) – the Supersorbon process. CS2 is adsorbed batchwise to activated carbon and is recovered for reuse in the viscose fiber production process after desorption and condensation. The discontinuous loading process for CS2 to activated carbon is central part of the research. Target is to find the maximum specific loading rate via theoretic modelling, but also variation of process parameters.

Further information: Description
 

Contact: Kevin Schulze

PAID DIPLOMA / MASTER’S THESIS (RCPE)

Objective:

In the pharmaceutical industry, a common method for a continuous downstream process of an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) involves blending the API, either as a powder or liquid, with excipients, followed by hot melt extrusion (HME) of the mixture. The resulting extrudates are then pelletized, mixed with additional excipients, and finally compressed into tablets. This diploma/master’s thesis will investigate the impact of moisture on the pelletability and tabletability, the material is exposed during this manufacturing process. Therefore, the raw material, the extrudates, and the pellets will be exposed to various levels of moisture and characterized afterwards regarding their quality for pelletability and tabletability.

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Kontakt:        Sandra Sünkel

PAID DIPLOMA / MASTER’S THESIS (RCPE)

Objective:

Nowadays, a common method for the continuous production of tablets is the direct compaction (DC). In such a DC line, the feed frame acts as the last station previous to the actual tableting process and is responsible for evenly distributing the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and excipients, and continuously delivering it to the matrices. However, the material properties of APIs and excipients can influcence the mixing behaviour in the feed frame. In the course of this diploma / master´s thesis the impact of the material properties on the mixing behaviour in the feed frame of a tablet press in industrial scale size was investigated. Therefore, particle size, shape, density, and surface characteristics of differents APIs and excipients will be analyzed and compared in terms of their mixing performance.

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Kontakt:        Sandra Sünkel

PHD thesis

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Kontakt:        Jana Preitler (jana.preitler@rcpe.at)