Jens te Kaat, Managing Director of Kueppers Solutions, and Marcel Biebl, Team Leader at Gas- und Wärme-Institut Essen e.V., were honoured with the Innovation Award of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in the "innovation2business" category. The "iRecu" recuperative burner they developed reduces natural gas consumption and opens up new possibilities for the use of hydrogen in industry.
The award ceremony took place on 30 September 2024 in Cologne in the presence of NRW Minister President Hendrik Wüst and NRW Minister of Economic Affairs and Climate Protection Mona Neubaur. The NRW Innovation Award honours idea providers from North Rhine-Westphalia who are driving the innovative strength of the federal state through their entrepreneurial achievements.
NRW Minister of Economic Affairs and Climate Protection Mona Neubaur (centre) presented Jens te Kaat (left), Managing Director of Kueppers Solutions, and Marcel Biebl (right), Team Leader at Gas- und Wärme-Institut Essen e.V., with the Innovation Award of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia in the "innovation2business" category. Photo: MWIKE NRW / S. Kurz
Interdisciplinary team develops industrial burners
Under the leadership of the two prizewinners, an interdisciplinary team spent several years researching the development of an innovative industrial burner that saves fuel, reduces CO₂ emissions and can be operated with promising energy sources such as green hydrogen.
"The iRecu acts as a bridging technology that supports the transition to a decarbonised thermoprocessing industry and enables a sustainable, low-emission future," says award winner Marcel Biebl from the Gas and Heat Institute.
NRW Minister of Economic Affairs Mona Neubaur (4th from left) and Dirk Stürmer (2nd from left), Managing Director of TechnologieZentrumDortmund, congratulated the award-winning teams from Kueppers Solutions and Gas- und Wärme-Institut Essen. Photo: MWIKE NRW / S. Kurz
Kueppers Solutions: Innovation meets sustainability
Kueppers Solutions has made a name for itself in the thermoprocessing industry, particularly with the development of the innovative "iRecu" recuperative burner. "As a medium-sized company, it makes us particularly proud to have developed a technology that is attracting so much interest both nationally and internationally," says Jens te Kaat. "The energy transition is one of the key issues of our time and our burner provides a crucial element for this."
Compared to conventional burners, the dual-fuel burner offers more efficient use of natural gas to generate heat for various industrial processes, thereby reducing energy consumption. At the same time, the burner helps to reduce CO₂ and nitrogen oxide emissions. Furthermore, the "iRecu" can be operated with both natural gas and hydrogen. This feature can play a decisive role in industry when switching to green hydrogen and achieving CO₂ targets.
The dual-fuel burner offers more efficient utilisation of natural gas to generate heat for various industrial processes. It can be operated with both natural gas and hydrogen. Photo: Deutscher Zukunftspreis / Ansgar Pudenz.
NRW Innovation Award: inventiveness and entrepreneurship
The prize is awarded to individuals whose progressive ideas make a decisive contribution to the innovative strength of North Rhine-Westphalia and who develop innovative solutions. After the Federal President's Future Prize, it is the most highly endowed award of its kind. Further information on the NRW 2024 Innovation Award can be found here.
https://www.wirtschaft.nrw/innovationspreis-nrw-2024-zukunft-made-nordrhein-westfalen
About Kueppers Solutions GmbH
The mechanical engineering company Kueppers Solutions GmbH, based in the Dortmund Centre for Production Technology, stands for innovative solutions for the thermal process industry. The development and manufacture of burners for the provision of process heat is one of Kueppers Solutions' core competences. Since 2017, the company's focus has been on developing innovative concepts for efficient and emission-reduced process optimisation. The innovations are aimed at reducing nitrogen oxides and CO₂, the low-emission and safe combustion of hydrogen and efficient heat recovery. In combination with the additive manufacturing of metallic and ceramic high-temperature components, Kueppers Solutions has a largely digitalised value chain. At the German Future Prize 2023, Kueppers Solutions was honoured by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier with a certificate and was included in the "circle of the best" by the jury of the German Future Prize. You can find more information here.
