Chemical factory in Marktredwitz

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Chemical factory Marktredwitz 1860

The Chemische Fabrik Marktredwitz ( CFM ) was a chemical company based in Marktredwitz .

history

The chemical factory in Marktredwitz was founded on July 24th, 1788 by Wolfgang Caspar Fikentscher and was the first chemical factory in Germany. In the early days, attempts were made to produce gold using chemical reactions ( alchemy ), and chemicals for the glass industry were also produced. In 1822 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe visited the factory. In 1891 the descendants of Fikentscher sold the factory to the brothers Oskar Bruno and Curt Bernhard Tropitzsch.

The brothers Tropitzsch put emphasis on the production of mercury -products, especially different pesticides . From 1907 the mercury-containing dressing agent Fusariol, developed by Lorenz Hiltner in Tharandt , was produced, which served as a fungicide .

In 1931 the Chemische Fabrik Marktredwitz was renamed Chemische Fabrik Marktredwitz Aktiengesellschaft.

Due to the cost of restoring the environmental damage, the company went under in 1985. Production was stopped due to a decision from the District Office of Wunsiedel i. Fichtelgebirge of July 15, 1985 - according to § 20 Abs. 3 BImSchG  - discontinued. Parts of the company were continued as a trading company by Cfm Oskar Tropitzsch GmbH.

Rehabilitation of the factory site

In 1985 one of the biggest environmental scandals in Germany and Europe was uncovered here. After 197 years of production of inorganic and organic mercury preparations, the area around the chemical plant was so polluted that the premises and the surrounding area had to be thoroughly renovated. The supervisory authorities revoked the operators' production permits and ordered the plant to be closed completely. Up to two grams of mercury per kilogram of soil were measured in the meter- deep contaminated soil . The Kosseine stream, a tributary of the Röslau , flows near the factory site, which is now a shopping center . The contaminated sludge from the river bed was also disposed of. Nevertheless, fish from the stream still have excessive mercury levels for over twenty years after the renovation.

The Harbauer company from Berlin was commissioned with the cleaning of the contaminated excavation and the demolition material after the dismantling of the building substance and the deep clearing. The renovation of this property comprised the selective dismantling of the building fabric, which was highly contaminated with mercury, the dismantling and packaging of highly contaminated plant components as well as the construction of a wet-mechanical / thermal-distillative soil and rubble cleaning plant on the outskirts of Marktredwitz, in the district of Wölsau, as the world's first large-scale treatment plant for Waste containing mercury erected. Construction began in mid-1992. From October 1993 the system was in use including the first optimization phase. The plant was operated from August 1993 to August 1996. A total of around 56,000 t of contaminated material was cleaned in the Marktredwitz facility. The project was completed in March 1997 with the handover of the renovated property to the city of Marktredwitz.

In retrospect, it can be said that the Marktredwitz plant was and is one of the few successful “prototypes” among the innovative waste treatment plants. Many of the solutions found in Marktredwitz in the course of process optimization in practice, such as B. the technology of the relatively complex mercury separation from the flue gas flow and the dedusting of the "mercury gases" were at the time of their construction and are still the subject of research projects at private and scientific institutions. Due to the relatively reasonable treatment prices at the beginning of the nineties, there were far fewer procedural limits in terms of process development and technical implementation, so that the Marktredwitz system, although it was only in use for a few years, can technically be regarded as one of the best treatment systems in the world.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Woldemar von Biedermann : Goethe and the Fikentscher. Teubner, Dresden 1878 ( digitized versionhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3Dgoeunddiefikent01biedgoog~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D~ double-sided%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D ).
  2. ^ Goethe in the chemical laboratory in Marktredwitz ; On the occasion of d. 150 years Established on July 24, 1788, the first German chem. Factory WC Fikentscher, d. today Chem. Factory Marktredwitz AG Berlin 1938.
  3. ↑ Gunhild Berg: New Views on Goethe's “Desired Color Pictures”. A previously unedited letter from Wolfgang Kaspar Fikentscher to Regina Susanna Johanna Martius dated August 28, 1822. In: Goethe-Jahrbuch Vol. 126. Wallstein, Göttingen 2009, ISSN  0323-4207 , pp. 245-259.
  4. ↑ Cfm Oskar Tropitzsch
  5. ↑ We often turned a blind eye . In: Der Spiegel . No. 48 , 1988, pp. 81-88 ( online ).
  6. ↑ First on the corpse - Former CFM employees are fighting for recognition as mercury victims . In: Der Spiegel . No. 18 , 1990, pp. 119-125 ( online ).
  7. ↑ 22 years after the chemical factory was closed, there is still mercury in fish . In: Frankenpost , September 27, 2007, accessed on October 1, 2008
  8. ↑ Richter RB, Stapelfeldt F, Flachberger, H and Araujo, MD: Physico-chemical and biological processes for the treatment of mercury contaminated mineral waste (physico-chemical and biological processes for the treatment of mercury contaminated wastes), Altlastenspektrum (03/2008), page 101 to 115

Coordinates: 50 ° 0 ′ 2.6 ″  N , 12 ° 5 ′ 18.1 ″  E