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About Sopat

The Team

Management

Jörn Emmerich

CEO & Co-Founder

Jörn Emmerich studied industrial engineering and management at the Technical University of Berlin, majoring in technical chemistry.

After his graduation he began his doctoral thesis on multidimensional particle characterization at the Department of Bioprocess Engineering at the Technical University of Berlin focussing on photo-optical sensor technologies. As founder and CEO of SOPAT GmbH, he also specialized in photo-optical measurement methods in the field of process analysis technologies. Smart Online Particle Analysis Technology (SOPAT) has received several research and business awards (ICT-Innovativ; Science4Life; Step Award; ICT Start-up of the Year, German Innovation Award).

Jörn Emmerich is a member of the ISO standards committee for particle measurement technology, co-founder of the “Fördervereinigung zur Stärkung der Normung und Forschung in der Partikelmesstechnik” and co-founder and deputy chairman of the Bio-PAT network.

Dr. Sebastian Maaß

CSO & Co-Founder

Dr. Sebastian Maaß studied process engineering (Dr.-Ing.) at the Technical University of Berlin. He has detailed expertise in process analysis and simulation as well as in the development and application of computer-aided, optical measuring methods.

As a shareholder of ERM Trade Net GmbH, which was founded in 2007, he was able to acquire comprehensive know-how in the development and foundation of a company.

Currently he is CSO of SOPAT GmbH and first contact person for strategic development, marketing and sales. In addition to his leading position as CSO and co-founder of SOPAT GmbH, Dr. Sebastian Maaß continues his research in the field of particle measurement technology: to date he has published more than 25 peer review articles and has authored/coauthored over 90 lectures and poster presentations at both national and international scientific conferences.

Sales Team

Dr. Mirco Wegener

Head of Sales and Marketing

Mirco Wegener is an Engineer in Chemical and Process Engineering. He studied at the Technische Universität Berlin. After internships at Bayer and BASF he finished his Diploma thesis on the subject of experimental investigations and modelling of population balance equations via measuring the drop size distributions in liquid/liquid systems using an in-situ endoscope – a predecessor of the today’s SOPAT technology.

He published a multitude of scientific papers and his dissertation was awarded the Tiburtius Award of the Universities of Berlin.

Mirco has an extensive experience: in 2011 he joined CSIRO in Australia, where he worked as postdoctoral fellow. In 2014, he became R&D Engineer of Sulzer Chemtech in Winterhur, Switzerland.

In 2016, he joined SOPAT as Director of Sales Europe, being responsible for managing customer relationships, measurement services, providing scientific expertise, etc. Today he is the Head of Sales and Marketing.

Dr. Tilo Schmutzler
Sales Europe
Dr. Tilo Schmutzler studied “Chemistry” (B.Sc) with a particular focus on “Mineralogy and Material Science” (M.Sc.) at Leipzig University. He moved to Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg in 2013 to do a PhD in Structural Physics (Dr. rer. nat.). Through all his scientific carrier structure and particle analysis using microscopy and scattering techniques was his core interest. Since 2019 he works at SOPAT as sales engineer for Europe with a strong expertise in crystallization processes, cocoa related applications and correlations of photo-optical measurements with other techniques for particle size analysis.

Rahul Rane

Sales India

Rahul Rane is a Chemical Engineer (B.E) from Dwarkadas J. Sanghvi College of Engineering, University of Mumbai. He moved to Berlin in 2018 to pursue M.Sc. in “Process Energy and Environmental Systems Engineering” (M.Sc.) from the Technical University of Berlin.

He has been associated with SOPAT since 2017, initially through SOPAT’s regional partner in India and since 2019 as a Sales Engineer for the Asian region with a strong experience with various processes in the pharmaceutical industry and the benefits that inline photo-optical measurements can offer. Driven by the need of innovation in process analytical technologies, he takes pride in providing cutting edge solutions to SOPAT’s Asian prospects

Raphael Klein

Sales Engineer

Raphael Klein joined SOPAT in 2021 as a Sales Engineer. He holds a M.Sc. and B.Sc. degree in “Brewing and Beverage Technology” from faculty of Process Sciences at Technical University of Berlin. He gained expertise working in research-, industrial production environments and within projects in process engineering companies both on national and international level. Based on his latest project optimizing a dry grinding/milling process in an industrial brewery by establishing a particle sensor-based control loop he can witness to you all the benefits of photo-optical particle size measurements and control.