Dr.-Ing. Carolina Feickert Fenske was awarded the Johannes B. Ortner Award of the Technical University of Munich on 14 November 2024 for her dissertation entitled “Biological H2/CO2 methanation in trickle bed reactors: Toward industrial application”. In her work, Ms. Feickert Fenske demonstrated the successful methanation of H2 and CO2 in a trickle bed reactor on a pilot scale. With the construction of the pilot reactor at the Garching wastewater treatment plant, it was possible to test its applicability under real application conditions with biogas as a CO2 source. With a height of 4.5 m and a reaction volume of 0.8 m³, the pilot reactor is currently one of the largest anaerobic trickle bed reactors in the world. Ms. Feickert Fenske's research developed essential strategies for stable reactor operation, optimization potentials, and recommendations for implementing the technology on an industrial scale.
The Johannes B. Ortner Foundation has been honoring outstanding work by young natural and technological scientists since 2005. The Johannes B. Ortner Award was presented during the TUM Award Dinner at the Bayerischer Hof in Munich.