Anton Vilsmeier

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Anton Vilsmeier (born June 12, 1894 in Burgweinting , today in Regensburg; † February 12, 1962 in Ludwigshafen am Rhein ) was a German chemist. The Vilsmeier reaction for the formylation of aromatics that he discovered bears his name.

biography

Vilsmeier grew up as the son (and second of twelve children) of a mill owner and farmer. After attending school in Burgweinting in Regensburg (grammar school from 1905), he attended the study seminar in St. Emmeran. In 1912 he broke off this (and at the same time broke off with the Catholic Church) and began an apprenticeship at the Bayerische Vereinsbank in Passau. In addition, he learned autodidactically for the matriculation examination, which he passed in 1914 at his old grammar school in Regensburg. He became a soldier with the 11th Bavarian Infantry Regiment at the beginning of World War I, was at the front from January 1915 and was taken prisoner of war on the Somme in September 1916, from which he was released in November 1919. After his release, he began studying chemistry at the University of Munich in 1920, which he continued in Erlangen from the winter semester of 1922/23. There he passed the association examination (due to the lack of diploma examinations at the time, a voluntary examination that entitles him to start with the dissertation) he started working for Otto Fischer in 1924 with a thesis on " Gamma-Chlor-Iso-Quinocyanine from Methyl- (Ethyl-) acetanilide and phosphorus oxychloride " doctorate . Vilsmeier examined a red dye discovered by Charles Friedel in 1894 and identified it as a quinoline derivative. He initially stayed at the university as an assistant to Fischer's successor, Rudolf Pummerer . However, he published neither with Pummerer nor with Otto Fischer (apart from the results of his dissertation). He had Albrecht Haack (1898–1976) examine the reaction of his dissertation (1926) in more detail, which led to the reaction of aromatics with substituted formamides and phosphorus oxychloride, which is named after him and Haack. In a comment on Haack's dissertation, Vilsmeier attached importance to the fact that the reaction to generate aldehydes was known to him beforehand and that a patent had been applied for. In 1951 he published again about his reaction.

From 1927 he was employed at BASF AG (then IG Farben) in the main laboratory of the Oberrhein operating group in Ludwigshafen and then in the scientific laboratory of the Alizarin department. In particular, he developed vat dyes of the indanthrene series, a focus of research at BASF. For example, Vilsmeier developed indanthrene red FBB. In addition to vat dyes, he also worked on metal complex dyes. He stayed with BASF in research and development all the time, retired in 1959 and died three years later.

During the Second World War he was drafted as a soldier in 1941, as the alizarin dye department was not important enough for the war effort, but in November 1944 he was sent to the dismantling of chemical plants (works in Dyhernfurth near Breslau and Gendorf near Altötting). After a short American imprisonment, he returned to Ludwigshafen in August 1945 in the Alizarin laboratory, initially at IG Farben and, after its unbundling, from 1952 at BASF. Even after the war he was involved in patents again (16 in total).

Honor

In 2012 the annual “Anton Vilsmeier Lecture” was launched at the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy at the University of Regensburg .

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ O. Fischer, A. Müller, A. Vilsmeier: II. On the action of phosphorus oxychloride on methyl (ethyl) acetanilide. Syntheses of γ-chloroisoquinocyanines . In: Journal for Practical Chemistry . tape 109 , no. 1 , 1925, p. 69-87 , doi : 10.1002 / prac.19251090104 .
  2. ↑ Christoph Meinel: A man and his reaction . In: News from chemistry . tape 60 , no. December 12 , 2012, p. 1187–1190 , doi : 10.1515 / nachrchem.2012.60.12.1187 .
  3. ↑ A. Vilsmeier, A. Haack: On the action of halophosphorus on alkyl formanilides. A new method for the preparation of secondary and tertiary p-alkylamino-benzaldehydes . In: Reports of the German Chemical Society (A and B Series) . tape 60 , no. 1 , January 1927, p. 119-122 , doi : 10.1002 / cber.19270600118 .
  4. ↑ Vilsmeier, On the production of aldehydes with N-disubstituted formamide, Chemiker-Zeitung, Volume 75, 1951, pp. 133-135
personal data
SURNAME Vilsmeier, Anton
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist
DATE OF BIRTH June 12, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Burgweinting
DATE OF DEATH February 12, 1962
Place of death Ludwigshafen am Rhein