Moritz Imhoff successfully defended his doctoral thesis on the 9th of February 2026, which was titled “Retrospective Consideration of Decomposition Events in the High-Pressure Polymerization Process”.

Nicola Schreiner successfully defended his doctoral thesis on the 9th of February, which was titled “High-Pressure Polymerization of Ethene: Industrial Applications on Mini-Plant Scale”.

From December 15 to 20, the Pacifichem 2025 took place in Honolulu, Hawaii. Prof. Busch presented “Bridging from fundamentals to large-scale application – material design and process safety considerations by theory and practice”, while Kristina presented “Emulsion Polymerizations under High-Pressure Conditions: Experiments and Modelling.”

On 10 December, the Busch research group held its Christmas celebration. The evening began with a visit to the Christmas market, where the group came together over mulled wine and punch. This was followed by a brewery tour at Grohe. The event concluded with a shared dinner on site, bringing the evening to a close in a relaxed atmosphere.

On 9 December, the Department of Chemistry honored the graduates of the Bachelor’s, mMaster’s, and Doctoral programs. The event takes place twice a year.

Sascha Hintenlang successfully defended his doctoral thesis on the 8th of December, which was titled “Implementing A New Comonomer into the High-Pressure Polymerization with Ethene”.

On the fifth of December 2025, the working group Busch held its traditional Santa Claus Coffee. Current staff and former members of the group came together for an evening in a festively arranged setting to foster exchange over food and drinks. A total of approximately 50 participants attended which included 17 former members.

Jonas Degenkolb successfully defended his doctoral thesis on the first December 2025, which was titled “Systematic Design of Predictive Models of the LDPE Polymerization up to Industrial Scale”.

On 19 November 2025, Kristina Zentel received the “Athene Award for Excellent Teaching” from the Karin Giersch Foundation. The award recognizes a teaching concept defined by clear structure, academic depth and the consistent integration of sustainability.

From 28 October to 30 October, Prof. Busch, together with Daniel Dyck, Sandra Pietrasch, Xaver-Phillip Possehl and Joshua Stahl, visited Borealis in Stenungsund (Sweden). The research group and Borealis AG have maintained a long-standing collaboration across various projects.

Lena Gockel successfully defended her doctoral thesis on 27 October 2025, which was titled “Modeling the Mixing Behavior of LDPE Reactors and its Influence on Polymer Properties”.

As part of a lecture series held at Queen’s University in Kingston, Professor Busch delivered his talk “Bridging from Fundamentals to Large-Scale Application – Material Design and Process Safety Considerations by Theory and Practice” on October 9.

On October 2 the annual ChemCup took place. This soccer tournament was hosted by the Department of Chemistry in the university stadium. The eight teams which are composed of various research groups, delivered exciting matches.

This year, the seminar week of the working group Busch took place from August 27th to August 2nd at the Darmstädter Haus in Hirschegg.

This year's ASME PVP (Pressure Vessels & Piping) conference took place from July 20 to 25, 2025 in Montreal, Canada. The working group Busch presented its current research in three lectures.

The ESS-HPT (“The European Summer School in High Pressure Technology”) 2025 took place from July 6 to 19 in Graz (Austria). Six PhD students from the working group Busch participated in the event.

On July 9, the semi-annual graduation party of the department of chemistry took place, which honors the graduates, who completed their Bachelor's or Master's degree or doctorate.

On July 4, 2025, the eighteenth annual meeting of Darmstadt’s Chemical Technologists and the awarding of the Ernst-Berl-Prize took place at the Restaurant Oberwaldhaus.

Christoph Weigel was presented with the “Best Poster Award” at the 12th Polymer Reaction Engineering Conference (PRE XII) in Clearwater Beach (Florida, USA), which was granted by Wiley Macromolecular Reaction Engineering.

At the 18th LDPE Plant Improvement Conference, which took place from June 2 to 4 in Izmir, Turkey, Svenja Albus and Sandra Pietrasch were awarded the prize for the best presentation in the Supplier category.

The 18th LDPE Plant Improvement Conference took place from June 2 to 4, 2025 in Izmir, Turkey. Global companies involved in the operation of LDPE and EVA producing plants get together at the conference organized by Uhde HPT to exchange news and innovations in the industry.

The 12th Polymer Reaction Engineering Conference (PRE XII) took place in Clearwater Beach (Florida, USA) from June 1 to 6, 2025.

This year's annual meeting of the DECHEMA/VDI sections for Reaction Engineering, Electrochemical Processes and Kinetics and Reaction Mechanisms took place at the Congress Centrum Würzburg from May 26 to 28.

From May 14 to 16, 2025, the 13th PhD workshop of the EFCE Working Party on Polymer Reaction Engineering (WPPRE) took place at Villa Grébovka in Prague (Czechia). The WPPRE offers young scientists from the field of polymer reaction engineering a platform to exchange ideas with each other and establish contacts in industry.

This year’s spring hike (“Blütenwanderung”) of the technical chemistry research groups of TU Darmstadt took place on April 24th at the Hessian Bergstraße. The group hiked from Heppenheim through the Odenwald to the Fürstenlager in Bensheim-Auerbach.

This year's meeting of the DECHEMA / VDI working groups on mixing processes, high-pressure process engineering and multiphase flows took place from March 19 to 21 at the Hamburg University of Technology.

In this year's Advanced Design Project, the students designed a methanol steam reforming plant for hydrogen production from March 3 to 14, 2025. The topic was provided in cooperation with the company Evonik, which subsequently enabled the students to visit their site in Marl on March 18.