Richard Küch

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Richard Küch

Richard Küch (born August 30, 1860 in Salmünster ; † June 3, 1915 in Hanau ) was a German physicist and chemist.

Early years and education

In 1869 Richard Küch moved to Hanau because of the transfer of his father, who worked as a rent manager . His younger brother was the later historian and archivist Friedrich Küch (1863-1935). In Hanau, Richard Küch attended the High State School where he graduated from high school in 1878.

From 1879 onwards, Küch studied mathematics, physics, chemistry and natural science first in Marburg and then in Leipzig with the aim of pursuing an academic career. On June 12, 1884 in Leipzig Küch summa cum laude with a thesis "Contribution to the petrography of the West African Slate Mountains" to the him his teacher, mineralogist Ferdinand Zirkel had suggested, PhD . Then, recommended by Zirkel, he accepted a position with the scholars Wilhelm Reiss and Moritz Alphons Stübel . They had undertaken a research trip through the high mountains of the Republic of Ecuador with their own funds and consulted Richard Küch to work on the petrography of the volcanic rocks.

Küch then moved to Berlin and worked there for a short time as an assistant at the Mineralogical-Petrographic Institute of the University of Berlin. He gave up this position in 1887 shortly after his mother's death. The developer met his future wife, widow Ida Calckhof, born in Berlin. Ziesenis, the daughter of a civil servant from Celle. The housewife, who stayed behind with a daughter, took in some guests in her house in a suburb of Berlin villas. Among them was Richard Küch, who was largely related to her deceased husband.

Work at Heraeus

Between 1888 and 1889, Richard Küch was commissioned by his former school friends Wilhelm Heraeus and Heinrich Heraeus to carry out investigations on platinum photo paper . Although the research on platinum photo paper was unsuccessful, the Heraeus brothers were so convinced of Küch's way of working that in 1890 they offered him a position as head of scientific research in the family's platinum smelter, which they had taken over from their father a year earlier. Küch accepted the offer in April 1890 and left Berlin with Ida Calckhof, whom he married a little later and with her founded a household on the Kinzig in Hanau.

His work at Heraeus quickly bore fruit and so Heraeus filed the first patent in the company's history in 1891 under Küch's direction. The Reich patent 63591 patented the gilding of platinum sheet. This gold-platinum sheet was then processed into kettles, which served to simplify the concentration of sulfuric acid. In 1896, with the takeover of the August Herbst bright gold factory, the foundation stone for bright gold production at Heraeus was laid. In bright gold followed gloss silver and platinum luster. The "ceramic department" at Heraeus Platinschmelze continuously developed the precious metal preparations under Küch.

Another pioneering invention by Richard Küch was the production of bubble-free quartz glass of the highest purity by melting rock crystal at high temperatures (up to 2000 ° C) in an oxyhydrogen flame . Since then, a new material with special properties has been available industrially in the form of quartz glass, which Heraeus' own division is still working on today. With the further developments of quartz glass, a mercury vapor quartz glass lamp designed by Küch made a career in medical light therapy in 1904. With Cheslav Stefan Retschinsky he built in 1906, the first mercury vapor high pressure lamp. With the " Höhensonne " from Original Hanau®, Küch is considered to be the inventor of the UV high-pressure lamp and pioneer of body irradiation with artificial light sources.

With the help of quartz glass, Richard Küch and his then colleague Ernst Haagn developed an electrical resistance thermometer made of platinum wire, with which it was possible to determine temperatures from −220 ° C to a maximum of 600 ° C very precisely.

The last few years and appreciation today

In 1909, Richard Küch became a partner in the newly founded WC Heraeus GmbH (today: Heraeus Holding GmbH ) and one of the three managing directors alongside the Heraeus brothers. He was also a member of the Wetterauische Gesellschaft für der Naturkunde zu Hanau 1808 eV 1915 In the year of his 25th company anniversary, Küch died on June 3, 1915 in Hanau of complications from a heart disease.

Heraeus has honored the importance of Küch's developments and inventions to this day. She named her communication and presentation forum on the factory premises after him. The city of Hanau named a street near his former home after him and his hometown Salmünster also honored him with a Richard-Küch-Straße.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b P. Askenasy: Obituary: Dr. Richard Küch. In: Journal of Electrochemistry. No. 22, 1916, p. 84.
  2. ↑ wolfsbrunn.de: The builder and his wife . Andus Emge website. Retrieved May 18, 2010.
  3. ↑ A gloss over coffee and speed for data traffic in FAZ from July 1, 2015, p. 33.
  4. ^ W. Kaiser, N. Gilson: Ceramic colors. In: Heraeus - pioneers in materials technology. 2001, p. 102 ff.
  5. ↑ W. Kaiser, N. Gilson: Quarzglas und Quarzgut. In: Heraeus - pioneers in materials technology. 2001, p. 107 ff.
  6. ^ W. Kaiser, N. Gilson: The platinum resistance thermometer. In: Heraeus - pioneers in materials technology. 2001, p. 329 ff.
  7. ↑ Richard Küch . Homepage of the city of Hanau. Retrieved May 18, 2010.
personal data
SURNAME Kitchen, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist and chemist
DATE OF BIRTH August 30, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Salmunster
DATE OF DEATH June 3, 1915
Place of death Hanau