Born in 1950, Dr. Richard Siwek graduated in chemical engineering from the Technical College of Winterthur in 1977 and joined the chemical and pharmaceutical company Ciba Geigy AG rigth after graduation. Under the mentorship of Prof. Wolfgang Bartknecht he introduced the 20-Litres explosion sphere and established it as the dominating testing device in dust explosion testing, in some literature even referred to as "Siwek sphere".
Richard also delivered substantial contributions to explosion venting, explosion suppression, explosion protection of spray towers and many other related subjects. For decades he has been an active member of numerous standardisation committees on global, European and national level, especially in Switzerland and Germany. During all of his career he was highly committed to share his tremendous expertise through countless publications and conference speeches. The honorary doctorate awarded entitles Richard Siwek to use the title of "Doktor-Ingenieur ehrenhalber" (equivalent to a Dr honoris causa in engineering science).
