Prof. Dr. Bernd Friedrich
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. h.c. Bernd Friedrich
Director of IME Process Metallurgy and Metal Recycling, RWTH Aachen University
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. h.c. Bernd Friedrich, born in 1958, studied metallurgical engineering and electrometallurgy followed by a doctorate in 1988 at RWTH Aachen University. After many years in management positions at GfE Nürnberg and VARTA Batterie AG, he returned to RWTH Aachen University in 1999 as a Full Professor of Metallurgical Process Engineering and Metal Recycling.
His institute (IME) covers the topic of “circular economy” at the RWTH as well as in the EIT RawMaterials for NRW. As a result of the steadily growing interest in battery recycling by the public, politics and industry, the IME has systematically addressed recycling concepts for all common battery systems with the aim of developing optimal industry-oriented recycling for all common battery systems since 2002. Lead-acid batteries, nickel-cadmium batteries, nickel-metal hydride batteries, primary batteries, Li-ion portable batteries and Li-ion traction batteries have all been tested down to the demo scale, some of the, have already been industrially implemented as BAT ( Best Available Technology). Prof. Friedrich has published more than 75 publications and contributions to international conferences. His work was awarded in 2008 with Europe’s highest endowed industry prize of the German Business Association, Dusseldorf and in 2012 with the “German Resource Efficiency Prize” of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy as an outstanding example of raw material and material-efficient products, processes or services and application-oriented research results.