Climate change and its consequences are part of global reality. Change of weather and extreme climate events are already creating challenges for infrastructure, agriculture, and industry. Strategies for responding to this range from efforts to limit climate change (e.g., through the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement) to adapting all affected areas. To do this, it is essential that engineers incorporate climate data and models into process planning in order to strengthen resilience to climate change. One area that is particularly affected by climate fluctuations and changes is the field of bio-based raw materials. Their composition can vary greatly depending on temperature, humidity, or solar radiation. If the raw materials are intended for further processing, the subsequent processes must be adjusted to these fluctuations (e.g. in molecular composition or residual moisture content) in order to ensure consistent product quality. A raw material that has recently become increasingly important and offers great potential for sustainable development towards a petroleum-free, CO₂-neutral, circular economy is the plant polymer lignin. Although lignin is the second most abundant plant substance after cellulose, its heterogeneous composition makes it difficult to process and it must first be refined through various processes to enable further processing.

An important step in this process is spray drying, which can be used to produce dry lignin powder from a water- or solvent-containing suspension. Depending on the process settings, the powder properties, such as color, particle morphology, flowability, or porosity, vary. So far, the influence of climate-related raw material variability on spray-drying processes has hardly been systematically investigated. There is no quantitative correlation between climate data, lignin raw-material properties, and process parameters.

The aim of this work is to close this research gap by first identifying significant climate-related variations in lignin properties and quantifying their influence on the spray-drying process and the resulting product quality. Building on this, the parameters that are crucial for robust spray drying of lignin will be investigated, as well as how the process can be dynamically adapted to varying feedstock using real climate data. A combination of experimental work, material characterization, and process modeling will be used to establish predictive relationships between climate-induced lignin variability, process parameters, and product properties. The ultimate goal is to derive strategies for dynamic process control, enabling spray-drying operations that remain stable and efficient even under changing climatic conditions.