Henning Bockhorn, Inaugural Recipient of the Jürgen Warnatz Gold Medal

Charles Westbrook, former CI President (2008-2012), Prof. Henning Bockhorn, and Katharina Kohse-Höinghaus, former CI President (2012-2016), at the 36th International Symposium on Combustion in Seoul, Korea
 

In this fourth installment of a seven-part series of articles, The Combustion Institute recognizes combustion scientists who were honored with medals and awards during the 36th International Symposium on Combustion. Henning Bockhorn is the inaugural recipient of the Jürgen Warnatz Gold Medal, for exceptional scientific contributions having a major impact on combustion applications, including the fundamental understanding of soot evolution and combustion noise.

Prof. Emeritus of Chemical Engineering and Combustion Technology, Henning Bockhorn has been head of the Institute of Chemical Engineering and the Division of Combustion Technology of the Engler-Bunte-Institut at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany. Since 1998, he has served as Director of the DVGW Research Institute of Technology at KIT.

Prof. Bockhorn completed his Ph.D. and Habilitation at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany. His professional research career has focused on the fundamentals of combustion systems, ranging from mixing and chemical reactions in laminar and turbulent flows, ignition and flame propagation, formation of pollutant and toxic chemicals during combustion, combustion characteristics of biomass combustion, and development of novel diagnostics for combustion processes. He is especially recognized for his pioneering work on the production of soot in combustion systems, including experiments, theory and detailed kinetic simulations.

Sought for his expertise, Prof. Bockhorn edited several important books that contend with combustion-generated soot and carbonaceous particles. He is also recognized as a highly effective leader of large research projects, including the recently successfully completed eleven-year project with the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) on Non-Stationary Combustion.

In 1991, Prof. Bockhorn received the DECHEMA award for “outstanding contributions to the field of modeling interactions between turbulence and chemical reactions in chemically reacting flows.” In 2012, he received the Gerhard Damköhler Medal of DECHEMA-GVC for “outstanding scientific contributions to combustion science.