Matthias Wessling

RWTH Aachen University, Germany

Matthias Wessling studied chemical engineering at Dortmund University and performed his M.Sc. with Sun-Tak Hwang at the University of Cincinnati. He received his Ph.D from Kees Smolders at the University of Twente. After his work at MTR Inc with Richard Baker and Hans Wijmans, and at Akzo Nobel, he was appointed Professor for Membrane Science and Technology at the University of Twente.

Since 2010 he is Alexander-von-Humboldt Professor at RWTH Aachen University and at the DWI Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials. During the past years much of his research was related to his ERC Advanced Investigator Grant “Controlling Fluid Resistances at Membranes”.

His work on gas separation nucleated the Evonik Gas Separation Sepuran product line. His work on nanofiltration hollow fiber membranes was the nucleus of new product lines at Pentair and NXFiltration. Together with Felix Broens he established the product line of desktop filtration processes at Convergence. Currently, his chair in Aachen spins out two startups: Biothrust and Amovion.

In 2019, Matthias Wessling received the Leibniz Price of the German Science Foundation. Recently he was elected to German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

In 2002 he organized an EMS Summer School. In 2011, he co-organized the ICOM 2011 at Amsterdam and in 2015 the Euromembrane at Aachen. He has served the EMS board in the 2000s.