In an official ceremony held in the Aachen City Ratskeller the Wilhelm Heinrich Sobbe Foundation prizes for the best final theses in raw materials engineering 2014 were awarded for the third time to the Raw Materials and Waste Disposal Technology Division at RWTH Aachen University.
The award for the best Bachelor’s thesis went to Violetta Storoschewich for her work ‘Deep-sea winning of massive sulphide deposits: developing a cost model to assess the cost effectiveness of future seabed mining projects’, while the best Master’s award was picked up by Mark Linssen for his thesis ‘Development and assessment of a strategy for storage optimisation using load displacement, with allowance for the local geomechanical conditions, based on the example of the EGL gas storage facility’. Finally, the award for the best doctoral dissertation went to Dr.-Ing. Christopher Robben for his work ‘Characteristics of sensor-based sorting technology and implementation in mining’.
Prof. Dr. phil. Rainer Slotta, a member of the board of trustees of the Dortmund-based Wilhelm Heinrich Sobbe Foundation, used the awards ceremony to recall the life of Friedrich-Wilhelm Sobbe, who bequeathed his entire estate to the Foundation on his death in 2008. Up to that time he was the owner of the Sobbe company, the Dortmund Derne-based detonator manufacturing firm that was founded in 1909 and is still thriving to this day. Sobbe’s production programme includes electrical and mechanical detonators, ignition cables, pyrotechnic assemblies and a whole range of special products. The Foundation’s work includes the advancement of teaching and research in the field of mining, with a special focus on the promotion of young scientists. Prizes of 1,500, 2,500 and 4,000 € were awarded in recognition of the best thesis work. (RWTH Aachen/Si)
