Alfred Klemm (chemist)

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Alfred Klemm (born February 15, 1913 in Leipzig , † February 23, 2013 in Mainz ) was a German chemist .

Life

Family and education

The Evangelical baptized Leipzig-born Alfred Klemm, son of the publisher Wilhelm Klemm and his wife Erna , born Kröner, daughter of the publisher Alfred Kröner , put his high school diploma at the Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz in the Upper Engadine from. He then turned to the study of chemistry at the University of Munich to which he with the promotion of Dr. rer. nat. completed.

Alfred Klemm married Hannelore Rothe in 1939 († 2014). From this marriage the children Silvia, Michael, Alfred, Tamina, Ebba, Aja, Imma (wife of Hanns-Josef Ortheil ) and Albrecht came from. Alfred Klemm died in February 2013 just after he had turned 100.

Professional background

After completing his studies, Alfred Klemm became a member of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society on May 1, 1939, and took up a position as a research assistant at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin-Dahlem. After the institute was destroyed during the war, it took him to Tailfingen in 1944 and to Mainz in 1949. In 1954 he completed his habilitation as a private lecturer in the subject of physical chemistry at the University of Mainz , where he was appointed adjunct professor in 1958 . In the 1950s -Jahren Alfred clamp worked as a guest at the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden's Gothenburg . On May 29, 1958, Klemm was appointed Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society and co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (Otto Hahn Institute) in Mainz. In 1981 he retired.

In 1945 he was co-founder with Hans Friedrich-Freksa , later editor of the journal for nature research .

After the end of his academic career, Alfred Klemm stepped forward in 1982 as the re-founder of the Dieterich'schen Verlagbuchhandlung , which had been in his father's possession from 1928 to 1956.

Scientific successes

1944 discovered clamping means of mass spectrometry, an isotope separation of silver , which in the solid silver iodide was moved electronically. In 1947 he and his colleagues found out that the effect can also be seen in molten salts. In cooperation with the theoretical physicist Ludwig Waldmann , also a scientific member at the MPI for Chemistry, he demonstrated in gas kinetic experiments that not only isotopes can be separated with the help of thermal diffusion , but also molecules that only differ in their moment of inertia . Klemm's research found in the expression "The Klemm method" , which describes a process for isotope enrichment, its permanent impact in science.

Publications (selection)

  • Cataphoresis of gas bubbles , dissertation , Hirzel, Leipzig 1938.
  • Thermodynamics of the transport processes in ion mixtures and their application to isotope-containing salts and metals , habilitation thesis , Mainz 1954.
  • Heinrich Biltz : Experimental Introduction to Inorganic Chemistry . Veit & Comp., Leipzig, later W. de Gruyter, Berlin [u. a.] 1st edition 1898, 20th edition 1938, later continued by Wilhelm Klemm and Werner Fischer .
  • Molten salts . In: Yearbook of the Max Planck Society 1965, pp. 119-134.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Klemm, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist
DATE OF BIRTH February 15, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH February 23, 2013
Place of death Mainz