Steinhardt Research interests

No research – no innovation.
No innovation – no progress.


That’s why Stein­hardt GmbH’s port­fo­lio includes active involve­ment in research programmes:

KEYS – Steinhardt’s research record in China

After the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of two research projects from the CLIENT pro­gram fund­ed by the Fed­er­al Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion and Research, Stein­hardt GmbH has now received the notice of approval for par­tic­i­pa­tion in the fol­low-up project, KEYS. The project active­ly sup­ports the devel­op­ment of Ger­man pio­neer­ing tech­nolo­gies for imple­men­ta­tion of the sponge city con­cept in China.

In coop­er­a­tion with Leib­nitz Uni­ver­si­ty in Hanover and oth­er part­ner com­pa­nies, local solu­tions are being devel­oped in the Chi­nese cap­i­tal, Bei­jing, as well as in the boom­ing metrop­o­lis of Shen­zhen. These solu­tions are con­sid­ered pilot projects with an impact on oth­er loca­tions in China.

In Bei­jing, for exam­ple, back-filled drainage ditch­es along traf­fic routes are being reac­ti­vat­ed as infil­tra­tion troughs for heavy rain­fall. The drained rain­wa­ter will be cleaned using inno­v­a­tive tech­ni­cal solu­tions. A demon­stra­tion par­ti­cle sep­a­ra­tion plant is being devel­oped and adapt­ed to local con­di­tions. The Stein­hardt HydroME­SI is the mod­el for this process; the prod­uct has been re-designed to meet local require­ments. In the new gov­ern­ment dis­trict in Bei­jing, the project par­tic­i­pants are build­ing a high-qual­i­ty treat­ment plant with inlet struc­ture, coarse sep­a­ra­tion, dis­charge throt­tling, sed­i­men­ta­tion, fil­ter and equal­iz­ing tank, which oper­ates with no elec­tric­i­ty using the pow­ers of gravitation.

The aim of the new devel­op­ment is also to take advan­tage of the topog­ra­phy, reduc­ing run-off, delay­ing run-off, cas­cad­ing run-off to pre­vent flood­ing in the low­er areas of the city. For this pur­pose, a “Chi­nese” HydroSlide flow reg­u­la­tor will be devel­oped, the design of which will take into account the dif­fi­cult local frame­work con­di­tions such as the short-term, heavy, mon­soon-like rain run-off, the immense ero­sion or the deposits of plas­tic, garbage, etc. on sur­faces as well as in the sew­er sys­tem. In order to cope with the major chal­lenges, oth­er hydraulic drainage solu­tions are being con­sid­ered – such as a mix­ture of HydroSlide and HydroStyx. Dis­charge brakes con­nect­ed in series with con­trolled open­ings and cas­cad­ing form the tech­ni­cal basis.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion at  http://www.client-keys.de

SIGN – SINO GERMAN NETWORK
Clean water from source to the tap

The Major Pro­gram of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy for Water Pol­lu­tion Con­trol and Gov­er­nance was called into being in Chi­na under the aegis of the Chi­nese Min­istry of Envi­ron­ment, sup­port­ed by a fur­ther six col­lab­o­rat­ing min­istries from the cen­tral gov­ern­ment, with the aim of effect­ing improve­ments in water man­age­ment. The pro­gramme is due to run from 2006 to 2020. Close co-oper­a­tion between 16 Ger­man project part­ners from indus­try – most­ly the SME sec­tor – and research will secure sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge whilst guar­an­tee­ing eco­nom­ic exploita­tion of the results by the par­tic­i­pat­ing busi­ness­es. The ten lead­ing research insti­tutes, respon­si­ble author­i­ties and water works that make up the Chi­nese project part­ner­ship, will imple­ment the solu­tions in China.
Fur­ther infor­ma­tion can be found under: http://www.water-sign.de/

SINOWATER
Good Water Governance and German water technology for two important Chinese bodies of water

The Major Pro­gram of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy for Water Pol­lu­tion Con­trol and Gov­er­nance was called into being in Chi­na under the aegis of the Chi­nese Min­istry of Envi­ron­ment, sup­port­ed by a fur­ther six col­lab­o­rat­ing min­istries from the cen­tral gov­ern­ment, with the aim of effect­ing improve­ments in water man­age­ment. The pro­gramme is due to run from 2006 to 2020. The con­sor­tium project SINOWATER is con­cerned with two or three major water bod­ies, which also hap­pen to be the most pol­lut­ed in Chi­na – the riv­er Liao and Lake Dian in the area of the megac­i­ties of Shanyang and Kun­ming respectively.

The over­all aim of the SINOWATER project is to improve the water qual­i­ty in the Chi­nese water sys­tems around the riv­er Liao and Lake Dian and so to devel­op and opti­mise Good Water Gov­er­nance. Ger­man inno­v­a­tive water tech­nol­o­gy and advances in water man­age­ment ele­ments will play major roles in achiev­ing these objectives.
Fur­ther infor­ma­tion can be found under https://client-sinowater.net/de

LOEWE-Project
Development of a semi-centralised device for treating polluted stormwater runoffs 

Prin­ci­pals: HMWK (Hes­s­ian Min­istry for Sci­ence and Arts); in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the THM (Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences Cen­tral Hesse, the DIBt (Ger­man Insti­tute for Con­struc­tion Tech­nol­o­gy); the Cen­tral Hesse den Mit­tel­hes­sis­chen Wasser­be­trieben Gießen, der Stein­hardt GmbH und der 3P Tech­nik GmbH.
Fur­ther infor­ma­tion can be found here.

CENTAUR
Cost Effective Neural Technique for Alleviation of Urban Flood Risk

CENTAUR is a Euro­pean Union Hori­zon 2020 (H2020) Inno­va­tion Action, the project start­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2015 and will run for 3 years.
This project aims to pro­vide an inno­v­a­tive, cost effec­tive, local autonomous sew­er flow con­trol sys­tem to reduce urban flood risk and thus fits with­in the require­ments of the pri­or­i­ty the­mat­ic area of flood man­age­ment iden­ti­fied by the EIP on Water.
CENTAUR has been devel­oped and test­ed using com­put­er mod­els and a lab­o­ra­to­ry test facil­i­ty at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Sheffield (UK). A pilot sys­tem has been installed in Coim­bra (PT) in Sep­tem­ber 2017 and is cur­rent­ly under­go­ing field test­ing. A fur­ther demon­stra­tion site in Toulouse (FR) is being designed for imple­men­ta­tion in late 2017.
As an ‘Inno­va­tion Action’, CENTAUR aims to devel­op exist­ing tech­nolo­gies into a mar­ketable sys­tem. The project team includes two SMEs, three uni­ver­si­ties / research insti­tutes and two water util­i­ties, more infor­ma­tion is on the 
See the About CENTAUR page for fur­ther infor­ma­tion about the project aims.

See also the arti­cle includ­ed in the EU Results Pack on Dig­i­tal Tran­si­tion in Water.

HYDRO KAVTEC
Steinhardt DilliGent-System forms the focus of a research project

With­in the scope of an AiF-man­aged project enti­tled HydroKavtec, the micro­bi­o­log­i­cal clean­ing per­for­mance of a hydro­dy­nam­ic cav­i­ta­tion sys­temdevel­oped by Stein­hardt GmbH will be researched and eval­u­at­ed at the Tech­nolo­giezen­trum Wass­er (TWZ) in Karlsruhe.

The back­ground facts: In human med­i­cine around 700 to 800 tonnes of antibi­otics are con­sumed annu­al­ly in Ger­many and in vet­eri­nary med­i­cine the fig­ure is even twice as high. The result is an increas­ing num­ber of resis­tant bac­te­ria that are released into the envi­ron­ment via waste­water and ulti­mate­ly find their way back into the human com­mu­ni­ty. Mul­ti-resis­tant bac­te­ria is the term used to describe bac­te­r­i­al strains which have learned to adapt to the effect of var­i­ous antibi­otics. In addi­tion to mul­ti-resis­tant bac­te­ria, oth­er water­borne path­o­gen­ic agents exist that can cause dis­eases, for exam­ple legionel­la which attacks the lungs.

The HydroKavtec project focuss­es on a hydro­dy­nam­ic cav­i­ta­tion-based process which is being devel­oped to elim­i­nate pathogens present in water. Using a defined high process water pre-pres­sure, cav­i­ta­tion, oxi­da­tion and vac­u­um are gen­er­at­ed with pin­point accu­ra­cy in a spe­cial­ly devel­oped hydro­me­chan­i­cal reac­tor sys­tem. The vac­u­um caus­es the struc­ture of the bac­te­r­i­al cells to burst, any residue is large­ly elim­i­nat­ed by oxidation.

Our project part­ner, the TZW – The Ger­man Water Cen­tre – will be respon­si­ble for record­ing the micro­bi­o­log­i­cal effi­cien­cy of the process. The process and plant tech­nol­o­gy will be devel­oped by the Stein­hardt com­pa­ny and will be spe­cial­ly adapt­ed to the require­ments described. Fur­ther­more, high per­for­mance oper­a­tion must be attained in cre­at­ing the cav­i­ta­tion effect with only min­i­mum ener­gy input.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion at: TZW-HydroKavtec

Fund­ing:
BMWi – Fed­er­al Min­istry of Eco­nom­ics and Technology

Project run­ning time:
July 2020 – June 2022

http://www.client-keys.de
http://www.client-keys.de