PASSAVANT

GERMANY (see also List of Individuals)

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7.4.1886 Michelbach/D - 31.3.1959 Michelbach/D

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Wilhelm Passavant studied mechanical engineering at the Technical Universities of Darmstadt and Clausthal, and there graduated in 1908. In 1910, he joined the firm of his father in the Nassau County. He increased the personnel from 200 to 1600 in the 1950s and therefore was a leading furnisher in city drainage and in the wastewater technology. He was for a long time a Member of Abwassertechnische Vereinigung ATV, acted there as a Council Member and was a founder of the association after World War II. He was awarded Honorary ATV-Member in the early 1950s, given the title Honorary Senator in 1950 from Stuttgart Technical University and in 1952, the Darmstadt technical University awarded him the Honorary Doctorate for his input in wastewater engineering. Passavant was also decorated with the VDI Honorary Ring, and the first class Bundesverdienstkreuz from the Republic of Germany in 1954.

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The name Passavant is well known in wastewater engineering, an engineering branch originally developed mainly in the United Kindom and in France, but later significantly expanded in Germany. Both the scientific and technical advances initiated there from 1900, with Karl Imhoff (1876-1965) as the nestor of the technological developments. The biological treatment of wastewater was taken into service and led to a significant improvement of water quality in the highly populated regions of Europe. Passavant in turn added to the variety of machinery used in wastewater treatment and thereby filled in the gap between civil and chemical engineering. His list of patents is long, as is also the variety of elements that he furnished to the German market first, and internationally after World War II. It includes wastewater pumping machinery, fat separation tanks and sand traps to exclude mineral matter from the biological purification process, surface skimmer and collector flumes installed in settling tanks, valves and gates to control the wastewater flow in a sewage treatment station, or material for the sludge digesters. Passavant also developed the today standard instrumentation used in canalizations. His name continues to live with Passavant-Roediger Umwelttechnik, Germany.

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_{Anonymous (1953). Ehrendoktor für Wilhelm Passavant. Wasser und Boden 5(8): 275. Anonymous (1956). Ehrensenator Dr.-Ing. E.h. Wilhelm Passavant. Bauamt und Gemeindebau 29(5): 160-161. P}

_{Kinder, I. (1959). Senator Dr.-Ing. E.h. Wilhelm Passavant. Bauamt und Gemeindebau 32(5):}

_{190. P http://www.aarbergen.de/historiekettenbach.htm}