ask-an-engineer GmbH & CO. KG was founded in 2021 by the two engineers Sami Kriden and Julian Strotmann with the aim of revolutionizing process and plant technology for production plants for the manufacture and processing of activated carbon.

The origin of our drive was the knowledge of the catastrophic production conditions of activated carbon worldwide. In the majority of cases, activated charcoal in Asia is made from hard coal or coconut shells. This causes considerable environmental damage, either when the coal is mined or when the coconut shells are carbonized in the farmers' fields, as all emissions are released into the atmosphere without any form of exhaust air purification. The subsequent activation process to produce the activated carbon from the coal or coke also takes place in most cases in high-temperature furnaces, which have no or only inadequate exhaust gas treatment.

This type of production is not only harmful to the environment and unacceptable for a "green" product such as activated carbon, which is mainly used for water and air purification, but also highly economically inefficient, as the energy-rich carbonization gases are released unused into the atmosphere.

From the very beginning, the focus was therefore on the idea of not only producing high-quality activated carbon from locally available raw materials, but also treating the exhaust gases generated during production in accordance with the highest legal requirements and utilizing the thermal energy contained in the carbon in an economically profitable manner using state-of-the-art technology.

After just two years of engineering and construction, the world's first activated carbon production plant with the innovative One-Step-Activation & Energy-Recovery-Plus technology developed by AAE was successfully put into operation. A plant that not only produces 1200 tons of activated carbon of the highest quality per year from agricultural residues, but is also energy-positive, i.e. it makes more usable energy available than it consumes.

This technological advantage over all other activated carbon production plants in operation worldwide was further expanded in the further development of the initial plant by coupling it with state-of-the-art turbine technology and optional hydrogen production.

The result of this development is the "AAE-3000" and "AAE-6000" activated carbon production plants, which are now revolutionizing the production of activated carbon worldwide.

We at AAE are proud to make a major contribution to our customers and society by protecting the environment, the climate and working conditions around the world.