In 1970 the twin university of Kaiserslautern-Trier was founded, from which the two independent universities of Trier and Kaiserslautern emerged in 1975. In 2003, in order to emphasize the focus of the University of Kaiserslautern in engineering, it was renamed to aTechnical University of Kaiserslauterna. In the 50 years of its existence, the development and further development of process engineering was one of the focal points of the mechanical and process engineering department. The article illuminates this path of development and presents the then and current research areas of the four process engineering chairs of the TU Kaiserslautern.