Bodo Linnhoff

Professor Bodo Linnhoff (born 1948) is a chemical engineer and academic who developed pinch analysis, a technique for minimizing energy usage in the process industries.In its early days, the technique helped companies such as ICI and BASF to design plants that used roughly 30% less energy. As of the 1990s, Pinch Analysis became industrial standard in the oil refining and petrochemical industries. In 2010, Linnhoff founded a finance company, Harvester International, which nurtures innovation and guides smaller companies, such as Inview Technology.

Born in Berlin, Germany, Linnhoff studied at Technical University of Hanover, Germany and ETH Zurich, Switzerland (MSc in Mechanical Engineering). He taught at ETH until 1974 when he went to University of Leeds, UK, as a British Council Scholar. There he gained a PhD in Chemical Engineering (1979). He joined the company ICI in 1977 and moved to the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) in 1982 where he was appointed to a Chair in Chemical Engineering.

The key concepts of Pinch Analysis were developed in his MSc. dissertation (1972, ETH Zurich) and in his PhD thesis "Thermodynamic Analysis in the Design of Process Networks" (awarded 1979, Leeds University). For this early work, Linnhoff received the Georg-Fischer-Preis of the ETH (1972) and the IChemE (UK) Moulton Medal and “Best Paper” Awards (both in 1980).

His work was developed in a series of papers beginning in 1978. Although he and his PhD supervisor John R. Flower had difficulty getting the first paper accepted, it became one of the most highly cited in the history of chemical engineering. In ICI, six design optimisation projects in six ICI Divisions (incl USA, Europe and Australia) resulted in significant energy savings. Subsequent programme of method development and further applications followed with ICI itself adopting the technique and further papers followed.

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