Albert Baur (chemist)

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Albert Baur (* 13. April 1856 in Biberach ; † 29. August 1933 ) was a German chemist and inventor who is the production of artificial musk patented scents. The substitutes researched and produced by Baur belong to the first generation of artificial musk notes that dominated perfumery up to the 1950s. Many of the substances marketed by Baur are problematic and may no longer be used in cosmetics, for example musk xylene has been banned in the EU since 2014. Baur's musk ketone is still used and was part of Chanel Nº 5, which has been sold since 1921 .

Life

Albert Baur's parents were the tragacanth manufacturer Julius Albert Baur (1809-1892) - his tragacanth sugar confectionery exhibits won awards - and Barbara, daughter of the pharmacist Kneisle from Ehingen. His siblings were Gustav (1846–1932), who took over his father's business, and Ottilie, who married the vinegar manufacturer Ernst Hauth.

Albert Baur completed an apprenticeship as a pharmacist and was awarded a doctorate in Tübingen on July 2, 1883 with the dissertation “About two butyltoluenes found in the resin essence”. rer. nat. PhD.

As early as 1881 it was noticed that a TNT-like molecule had a musky odor. Baur, who (according to this source) was working on a manufacturing process for TNT, discovered that a musk substitute can be made chemically. To do this, he first produced butyl toluene and then used nitration with nitric acid and sulfuric acid . According to his statements, he had this manufacturing process patented “in all countries”, whereby he received the German and American patents in 1889. At that time he lived in Gispersleben near Erfurt and became factory director there around 1890. He researched further and found other musk fragrance substitutes: musk ketone , musk xylene and musk ambrette. The musk baur (Musc Baur) and the tonquino (from the company Valentimer & Schwarz in Leipzig) were particularly well known . For France it was produced in the Giromagny factory and for the rest of the world in the factory in Mulhouse . The artificial musk was widely used in the manufacture of toilet soap. In France he had Fabrique de produits chimiques de Thann & Mulhouse produced. In the same year Emil Schnaufer and Heinrich Hupfeld succeeded in alkylating musk xylene. After that, new fragrances were invented and patented in quick succession.

Albert Baur became a rich man; in the town of Gernrode he had the Villa Irma built. In 1893 he married Irma, the daughter of the pharmacist Hugo Münzel from Bad Suderode. On October 6, 1894, their son Herbert Baur was born, who, after convalescence, attended Schrader's military preparation institute in Magdeburg to prepare for his Abitur and was transferred to the Francisceum in Zerbst when the war broke out . His chemistry studies in Halle were interrupted by army service until February 1919. After the association exams in the summer of 1920, he went to Göttingen, where he worked as an organic chemist and began his doctoral thesis with Walther Borsche in autumn 1921 . The daughter-in-law Martha had two children.

Albert Baur was a member of the Gernroder parish church council, on the board of directors of the municipal savings bank, was deputy mayor and board member of the infant care institution established in 1894, and also a member of the Harz Club branch association. He donated a relief of the Duke of Anhalt for the meeting room of the town hall and after a house fire got the town a new fire engine. He also acted as a donor for his home town of Biberach an der Riss .

Significance and aftermath of Baur's developments

The use of artificial substances as fragrances already existed before Baur's discoveries: the bitter almond oil- like smell of nitrobenzene , discovered almost 50 years earlier, was used to perfume soaps under the name “Mirban oil”. Around 1900, after Baur had brought its fragrances onto the market, only cheap toilet soaps were provided with Mirban oil. Baur's work achieved a new quality: the scent of the artificial fragrance musk-ketone comes closest to that of natural musk. They are closely linked to the beginning of an industry based on synthetic aromatic chemistry. In the period up to the turn of the century, hundreds of different fragrances were synthesized.

The nitroaromatics developed by Baur as a musk scent substitute are difficult to break down in the environment, they are persistent and therefore widespread as pollutants. Some of them, especially the musk ambrette, are phototoxic : photoallergies arise with (sun) light. Apart from the musk ketone, the use of most nitroaromatics in cosmetics is therefore banned in the EU today: that of musk ambrette since 1995, musk xylene since 2014.

Reactions used by Baur

Sequence of alkylation and nitration, here to represent musk xylene

The most important reactions used by Baur were the Friedel-Crafts alkylation, known only since 1877, and the Friedel-Crafts acylation for the production of the musk ketone . The nitration with nitric acid or with a nitric acid-sulfuric acid mixture is an electrophilic aromatic substitution .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Rita Kunze: Perfumer Albert Baur - Why a Swabian built a villa in the Harz Mountains. In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung. Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, Halle / Saale, November 21, 2017, accessed on May 20, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b Sergey Borisov: Natural and Synthetic Musk. In: News from Category> Raw Materials. Fragrantica® Inc, San Diego, March 6, 2014, accessed April 7, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Sabine Betzler: Tragant, Devisen and the "Zückerles-Baur" - A significant piece of Biberach industrial history. In: BC-Heimatkundliche Blätter for the district of Biberach, 17th year • Special issue 1 • November 3, 1994. Society for home care in the city and district of Biberach e. V., 1994, accessed May 19, 2019 .
  4. ^ Honorary citizen of the city of Biberach - Gustav Baur, 1920. In: Citizens, Council & Administration> Citizens> Citizen Engagement> Honorary Citizens. City administration Biberach, accessed on May 20, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Werner Kelbe, Albert Baur: About two butyltoluenes occurring in the resin essence . In: Ferd. Tiemann (Ed.): Reports of the German Chemical Society . tape 16 , no. 2 . Friedländer & Sohn, Berlin July 1883, p. 2559-2566 , doi : 10.1002 / cber.188301602185 ( online at Gallica).
  6. ^ A b Edward Sagarin: The Science And Art Of Perfumery . First ed. McGraw-Hill, New York, London 1945, The Genealogy of a Formula, pp. 88 (English, online in the Internet Archive): “In 1881 Werner Kelbe described a chemical of a musky odor”
  7. ↑ Musk ketones. In: American Chemical Society> Molecule of the Week> Molecule of the Week Archive> Archive - M> Musk ketone. American Chemical Society, May 8, 2017, accessed May 19, 2019 .
  8. ↑ a b c Patent DE47599 : Process for the production of artificial musk. Registered June 3, 1888 , published May 21, 1889 , inventor: Dr. Albert Baur in Gispersleben ( online at depatisnet.dpma.de). ‌
  9. ↑ a b Patent US416710 : Process of Making Artificial Musk. Published on December 10, 1889 , inventor: Albert Baur ( online at patentimages). ‌
  10. ^ A b Albert Baur: Studies on the artificial musk . In: Ferd. Tiemann, F. v. Dechend (Ed.): Reports of the German Chemical Society . tape 24 , no. 2 . Friedländer & Sohn, Berlin July 1891, p. 2832–2843 , doi : 10.1002 / cber.189102402106 ( online [accessed May 17, 2019]).
  11. ↑ a b Wolfgang Legrum: Fragrances, between stench and fragrance: Occurrence, properties and use of fragrances and their mixtures . 2., revised. and exp. Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden 2015, ISBN 978-3-658-07309-1 , p. 166–167 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-658-07310-7 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  12. ↑ Rosemarie Kellermann: History of the Villa "Spichalski" in Gernrode. In: Villa Irma. Retrieved April 21, 2019 .
  13. ^ "Albert + Baur" + münzel & focus = searchwithinvolume & q = "son + of + chemist + Dr. + Albert + Baur + and + his + wife + Irma% 2C + born + Münzel" Herbert Baur: About the synthesis of some new phenol ketones; P. 44
  14. ↑ Fragrances (1) . In: Otto Lueger (Ed.): Lexicon of the entire technology and its auxiliary sciences . tape  7 . Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart, Leipzig 1909, p. 425-426 ( online [accessed September 15, 2019]): "For perfuming cheap toilet soaps"
  15. ^ A b Edward Sagarin: The Science And Art Of Perfumery . First ed. McGraw-Hill, New York, London 1945, The Genealogy of a Formula, pp. 117 (English, online in the Internet Archive): “closest to the natural musk in its odor”
  16. ↑ RD Parker, EV Buehler, A. Newmann: Phototoxicity, photoallergy, and contact sensitization of nitro musk perfume raw materials . In: Contact Dermatitis . tape 14 , no. 2 , February 1986, p. 103-109 , doi : 10.1111 / j.1600-0536.1986.tb01169.x ( online [accessed May 19, 2019]).
  17. ↑ List of substances subject to authorization 5-tert-butyl-2,4,6-trinitro-m-xylene (Musk xylene)
personal data
SURNAME Baur, Albert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Moschusbaur (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pharmacist, chemist and inventor
DATE OF BIRTH April 13, 1856
PLACE OF BIRTH Biberach an der Riss
DATE OF DEATH August 29, 1933