Prof. dr. ir. Rudolf Hausmann

• Head of the Bioprocess Engineering department
• University of Hohenheim

Rudolf HAUSMANN has been full professor and head of the “Bioprocess Engineering” department at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart since 2012. He studied chemical engineering at the University of Karlsruhe and received his doctorate in 2000 at the Institute of Technical Chemistry, Water and Geotechnics at the Karlsruhe Research Centre. Prior to his position at the University of Hohenheim, Prof. Hausmann was an academic assistant at the Institute of Bio- and Food Technology in the Department of Technical Biology at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Karlsruhe.

Current research topics at the department of Bioprocess Engineering include process development for the microbial production and preparation of biobased chemicals. One focus of innovation is the production of microbial surfactants (rhamnolipids and surfactin), so-called biosurfactants, based on renewable raw materials. Rudolf Hausmann has co-authored more than 80 articles and book chapters on microbial biosurfactants.

The infrastructure at the department of Bioprocess Engineering for bioproduction comprises state-of-the-art bioreactors (10L + 3x 35L) and modern molecular biological laboratories. The bioreactors enable controlled gassing of air, oxygen, nitrogen and ammoniac at up to two bars. The bioreactors enable online mass balances and online model-based process control. Additionally, they are equipped with foam centrifuges form foam harvesting. For the ISPR in-situ flotation and in-situ membrane modules may be adopted for the production of microbial biosurfactants.