For its project Structured Heat Exchange for Optimized Water Energy Recovery (SHOWER), Dr. Fischer’s group received the award in the Research study category. As the acronym suggests, the project focuses on showering and warm water generation. Showers are the second-largest energy consumer in homes, while waste heat remains the greatest untapped energy source. To harness this capacity, Dr. Michael-David Fischer, Simon Baier, Laura Jakobsen-Urwald, Luis Ohm, Andre Grütering, and Solvejg Höller are developing maintenance-free heat exchangers. Their technology could conserve over half of the energy required for hot water production– such as for showering. In Germany alone, this would make it possible to lower yearly co2 emissions by approximately ten million tonnes. The group operates in close cooperation with business and market partners to advance this advancement.
A jury of experts from academia and practice selected the recipients from 28 submissions. In the Teaching classification, a job from Ruhr University Bochum was recognized, while in the Transfer category, a job from the German Sport University Cologne got the award. “This year’s submissions once again demonstrate how diverse, innovative, and practice-oriented the answers from NRW’s clinical community are to the obstacles of the sustainability shift,” emphasized jury chair Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Lambert T. Koch. “The Humboldtⁿ Award makes a crucial contribution by raising awareness of these solutions, supporting their implementation, and inspiring originalities.” The Future Conference at the University of Duisburg-Essen united agents from universities and non-university research study organizations in NRW with policymakers from the state government.
About Humboldtⁿ
In 2021, the 16 universities of North Rhine-Westphalia signed up with forces with the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment, Energy to introduce the Humboldtⁿ effort, with the objective of actively promoting sustainability within college. Considering that 2023, the Humboldtⁿ Award has actually existed biennially to give greater visibility to sustainable research.