Chair of Circular Economy and Recycling Technology (CERT)

Circular economy and recycling are essential for a sustainable economic system. In the sense of precautionary environmentalism, questions of future technologies as well as product and infrastructure development must be discussed with foresight in the context of raw material supply and resource protection. This is what the teaching and research at the Department of Circular Economy and Recycling Technology stands for.

The Chair of Circular Economy and Recycling Technology identifies, quantifies and characterizes the Way of solid resources and raw materials in society and the environment in a product-centric manner and develops and optimizes recycling technologies at the aggregate, plant and system level.

The Chair was established in 1975 under the name "Waste Management" and was part of the Institute for Technical Environmental Protection since its foundation. It was headed by Prof. Karl-Joachim Thomé-Kozmiensky until 2003 when Prof. Dr.-Ing. Vera Susanne Rotter took over the leadership, first as junior professor and from 2010 onwards as full professor. Since then, the chair has been growing steadily and currently has a total of 20 staff members and 6 fellows and visiting scientists.