Richard Zsigmondy

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Richard Zsigmondy around 1900
obituary

Richard Zsigmondy , full name Richard Adolf Zsigmondy (born April 1, 1865 in Vienna , † September 23, 1929 in Göttingen ) was an Austrian chemist of Hungarian descent, researcher in the field of colloid chemistry and microscopy and Nobel Prize winner for chemistry.

resume

Richard Zsigmondy was the third of four sons of dentist Adolph Zsigmondy . In 1883 he began studying technical chemistry at the Imperial and Royal Technical University in Vienna , where he passed the first state examination in 1885. In 1887 he moved to the University of Munich, where he received his doctorate in 1889. Among other things, he was a private assistant in Munich (1889) and Berlin (1890 to 1892) and from 1893 to 1897 assistant at TU Graz , where he completed his habilitation .

From 1897 to 1900 he worked as a research assistant at the Schott glassworks in Jena , where he developed the famous Jena milk glass and acquired several patents.

From 1900 to 1907 he lived as a private scholar in Jena. In 1907 he withdrew with his family to his property in Terlago near Trient , and from 1908 until his death in 1929 he was a full professor of inorganic chemistry at the University of Göttingen . His grave is in the Göttingen city cemetery , where other Nobel Prize winners are buried.

His brothers Emil and Otto were well-known mountaineers, brother Karl was a mathematician and rector of the Vienna University of Technology. His daughter Annemarie was married to the chemist and physicist Erich Hückel .

The Richard-Zsigmondy-Scholarship of the Kollagen-Gesellschaft was named after him.

Scientific achievements

Göttingen, Stadtfriedhof, grave of Richard Zsigmondy

Together with the physicist Henry Siedentopf ( Zeiss company ), he constructed an ultramicroscope , a special version of a dark field microscope . By improving this microscope , he created the immersion ultramicroscope in 1912, with which he could make particles with a size of a millionth of a millimeter ( nanometer ) visible.

Zsigmondy introduced a system of three orders of magnitude for the division of substances in solvents on: microns , ultramicrons and amicrons .

In order to be able to make the Amikronen visible, he developed the so-called germination method.

In 1916 he invented the membrane filter and ultrafine filter together with Wilhelm Bachmann . With this groundbreaking work, in cooperation with the company de Haën in Seelze and with the Göttingen Sartorius works , he created the prerequisites for Germany's leading position in membrane technology.

His research was also of particular importance for biology and medicine , as it emerged from it that the protoplasm has all the features and changes of colloidal solutions.

Honors

Zsigmondy received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1925 (awarded in 1926) “for the elucidation of the heterogeneous nature of colloidal solutions and for the methods used, which are fundamental to modern colloid chemistry ”.

In 1956, Zsigmondygasse in Vienna- Simmering (11th district) was named after him. The Zsigmondy lunar crater bears his name.

Fonts

(Selection)

  • On the Knowledge of Colloids, 1905
  • On Colloid Chemistry with Special Consideration of Inorganic Colloids, 1907
  • Colloid Chemistry, 1912
  • About technical gas analysis, 1920 (with G. Jander)
  • About colloidal gold, 1925 (with A. Thiessen)

literature

  • Ernst Bruckmüller (Hrsg.): Personenlexikon Österreich, publishing group Österreich-Lexikon, Vienna 2001, ISBN 3-95004-387-X , p. 556
  • Entry on Zsigmondy, Richard in the Austria Forum  (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon )
  • Alois Kernbauer: Richard Zsigmondy. Private lecturer for chemical technology at the Technical University 1892–1897 and Nobel Prize winner 1925. In: Josef W. Wohinz (Ed.), Die Technik in Graz. Out of tradition for innovation. Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 1999, pp. 157–165.
  • Timo Mappes, Norbert Jahr, Andrea Csáki, Nadine Vogler, Jürgen Popp and Wolfgang Fritzsche: The Invention of the Immersion Ultramicroscope in 1912 - The Beginning of Nanotechnology? . In: Angewandte Chemie . 124, No. 45, 2012, pp. 11307-11375. doi : 10.1002 / anie.201204688 .

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Zsigmondy, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Zsigmondy, Richard Adolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian chemist, Nobel laureate in chemistry (1925), mountaineer
DATE OF BIRTH April 1, 1865
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH September 23, 1929
Place of death Goettingen