During Professor Köster's appointment, there was the unique opportunity to apply for a large-scale research facility, which is financed by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Ministry of Science and Culture of Lower Saxony (MWK) in equal parts. The ISAH applied for a special facility of an experimental and online measuring stand for the description, balancing, development, performance evaluation, and comparison of biotechnological processes in water and waste management. The large-scale research facility will be used to take a holistic view of the wastewater and waste engineering bioprocesses to be investigated and to balance all material flows (gas, water, solids) completely and under real process conditions. Kinetic parameters are determined for different substrates and inhibitors, which then find their way into the mathematical modeling. The results obtained will also be used to further develop process modeling, including its calibration and validation. The use of the large-scale equipment is expected to yield a considerable gain in knowledge, which will be used to record new and innovative processes more quickly regarding their performance and limits and to evaluate them regarding a life-cycle analysis. This will also make it possible to limit lengthy trials on semi-industrial plants and pilot plants to a small number of issues and to save time and costs through parallel trials. The upscaling necessary for process development can also be significantly shortened.

The test stand, which has been given its own premises at the institute, complements the existing test equipment of the ISAH perfectly and will enable the institute and its partners to achieve essential progress in the field of basic research.

We would like to thank the DFG and the MWK for the financial support as well as all persons and institutions who have supported us so wonderfully in the technical specification, the establishment of the structural requirements, the procurement, and the assembly of the device.