The Chair of Thermodynamics mourns the unexpected early death of its Senior Scientist Markus Spinnler. He is survived by his wife Barbara and two children.
Markus Spinnler joined the Chair of Thermodynamics as a Senior Scientist in 2001 after completing his excellent doctorate on the subject of "Theoretical and experimental investigations of thermal insulation systems for high-temperature fuel cells" and held this position for the last 22 years until his death.
The focus of his research activities was on heat transfer / material properties, solar energy, water treatment and desalination, air conditioning / comfort and energy-optimized construction. In this context, he supervised the doctoral students
- Alexander Präbst
- Bernd Heithorst
- Mayamen Naser Reda
- Andreas Kastl
- Hannes Dietz
- Florian Kiefer
- Alexander Kroiß
- Paul Christ
- Burkhard Seifert
- Manuel Lorenz
- Stephan Parzinger
- Abdel Hakim Hassabou
up to their doctorates and, above all, inspired numerous students to work on his research projects. His teams of doctoral and undergraduate students have won prizes for their work on energy-optimized construction and seawater desalination. Particularly noteworthy are the elaborate TUM DeSal Challenges organized by Markus Spinnler and his colleagues in 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2016, competitions for student groups from several countries on seawater desalination with practical demonstrations of the performance of the solar thermal concepts developed.
Markus Spinnler has been very successful in training students with the environmentally-oriented content of his courses over the 22 years he has been at the Chair of Thermodynamics. His portfolio included "Solar Engineering", "Energy Optimization for Buildings" and "Desalination" with lectures, exercises and examinations as well as the exercises and examinations for "Air Conditioning and Refrigeration" and "Thermodynamics II".
With his great optimism, despite some of his own health difficulties, and his high level of problem-solving skills, he helped many employees at the Chair of Thermodynamics out of critical situations and led the doctoral students he supervised to their doctorates. He also contributed to the smooth running of the Chair of Thermodynamics in a wide range of functions.
With the early death of Markus Spinnler, the Chair of Thermodynamics has lost one of its most important pillars and he leaves a huge gap.