TED Community » Juergen Rarey

About Me

I grew up far away from Haight Street :-) - nevertheless Amsterdam and the "Milky Way" bookshop were close to bridge the distance and infect me with ideas of Tim Leary and others.

Early hobbies were reading, electronics, rock music, political theories and art. Starting 1968 I shortly engaged in some political activism. One of my main influences was Leo Kofler, whose lectures I attended for several years and from whom I learned basic techniques of thinking and argumentation.

In 1973 , like many others, I traveled the long way over Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India to Nepal to rethink my own way.

After getting back to Europe, I spent years studying for personal interest (germanistics, sociology, philosophy, .....) but was finally not very impressed by this part of the academic world.

Deciding that it would be a good idea to learn a job to earn my living, I studied and graduated in Chemistry and did my PhD in Chemical Engineering. Built my first computer in the 3rd year of study and developed some interfacing to lab equipment and control software. Got fascinated by the possibilities of simulation and learned the importance of the correct description of basic phenomena on the outcome of simulations (garbage in - garbage out).

In 1989 near the end of my PhD study I moved to Oldenburg in northern Germany. Since April 1989 I have a permanent position at the University of Oldenburg (www.uni-oldenburg.de/tchemie) in the group of Prof. Gmehling.

In the same year I co-founded DDBST GmbH (www.ddbst.com). This company today is the most well known provider of thermophysical property data and estimation methods for process simulation and further applications in safety, environmental protection, ....

Since the 80's I teach many courses on applied thermodynamics for chemical process simulation for external participants from industry both in Oldenburg and in-house for companies in Europe, the US, Middle East, South Africa, Japan, ... My special gift is that I can talk for 3 or 4 days and the participants don't get bored :-)

A further role in professional life is a honorary Prof. position in Durban, SA. Currently my group there consists of 4 MSc and one PhD student, all highly motivated. We developed and published estimation methods for a number of important properties like vapor pressure, liquid viscosity, ... The first of our methods on normal boiling point is already generally regarded as the primary and best method available.

My own work includes
- Development and construction of a fully automated apparatus for the measurement of very high precision vapor-liquid equilibria (key property for the simulation of distillation columns, the most frequently used and one of the most energy consuming unit operation in chemical and petrochemical industry.
- Development of a software package (ARTIST) for the estimation of thermophysical properties from molecular structure together with W. Cordes.
- Development and implementation of a data regression software for different types of phase equilibrium and excess properties of mixtures used by many companies worldwide. I am the main and only software developer for this package.
- Development of estimation methods for thermophysical properties of pure components.
- Improvement of mixture models (FLEXQUAC).
- Test and further improvement of quantumchemical methods for property estimation (COSMO-RS(Ol)).

In private life, I am very enthusiastic about current cultural developments, most of my friends can be found in the Berlin boheme. I love to go to rave parties and enjoy communicating with creative and innovative people from other fields like sociologists, artist, musicians and the like. I am a great fan of electronic music and highly value the Dionysian experience as described by Nietzsche in the "Birth of Tragedy" (The Dionysian impulse features immersion in the wholeness of nature, intoxication, non-rationality, and inhumanity).

I do not like alcoholic drinks and strongly avoid people who are under the influence of more than minor amounts of this drug. These people are generally a waste of my precious time.

Personal research involves strategies to achieve immortality. My first real problem with aging became apparent at an age of about 38 when I felt a first decline in the love for new things and thoughts. I managed to find a cure that keeps my mental functions, enthusiasm and motivation on the level of a 30-35 year old. Hopefully I will be able to find similar solutions for future problems associated with aging.
Quote: "don't knock ego - it's all that stands between us and the lamer universe we have the bad taste to be stuck in" (Jof D'Mahl in "Riding the Torch" - Norman Spinrad)