Carl Friedrich Wenzel

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Carl Friedrich Wenzel (also written as Karl Friedrich W. ) (born August 20, 1740 in Dresden , † February 26, 1793 in Freiberg ) was a German chemist .

Live and act

He first learned in his father's bookbinding workshop, where he also worked as a journeyman. In 1755 he began to leave his hometown and went on several journeys that also took him to Greenland . He completed training as a ship surgeon in the Dutch service. In 1766 he began to study chemistry in Leipzig for three years. In 1780 he became a chemist with the electoral Saxon smelting administration, later in 1785 chief hüttenassessor in Freiberg and from 1786 arcanist in the porcelain factory in Meissen . There, improvements to the underglaze cobalt blue (see glaze ) are attributed to him.

Meissen porcelain around 1900

Along with Jeremias Benjamin Richter, Wenzel was the first to deal with the problem of chemical kinship theory, the doctrine of the kinship of bodies .

"The strength of the chemical relationship is proportional to the mass of the active ones."

- Carl Friedrich Wenzel : Wenzel KF, Lehr from the kinship of the body, Dresden, 1777, 3rd edition, ed. VDH Gründel, (Dresden 1800) quoted in: Winkler Hans-Georg, The Mass Effect Act, Aulis-Verlag Deubner, Cologne, 2nd edition, 1975, p. 83

In this work he anticipated the law of mass action . According to this, the chemical action of a body is proportional and dependent on its reactive or effective amount or its concentration .

Works (selection)

  • Introduction to higher chemistry. Leipzig, (1774)
  • Doctrine of the Relationship of Bodies. Dresden (1777, 2nd edition 1782);
  • Chemical investigation of fluorspar. Dresden (1783)
  • Chemical attempts to break down metals into their constituent parts by means of reverberation. Copenhagen (1781)
  • About shooting in mines and quarries. Miners. Journal II, (1790)
  • On the most beneficial way of trying tin ores. New miners. Journal I, (1795)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schwedt, Georg: Chemistry across the board and reactive: basic reactions with everyday products. Wiley (2011), p. 9 (PDF; 973 kB)
  2. ↑ Ludwig Darmstaedter: Handbook for the history of natural sciences and technology 1866 p. 244; (PDF; 3.2 MB)
  3. ^ Carl Oppenheimer:  Wenzel, Karl Friedrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 41, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1896, p. 739.
personal data
SURNAME Wenzel, Carl Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wenzel, Karl Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist
DATE OF BIRTH August 20, 1740
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH February 26, 1793
Place of death Freiberg