Chemical factory in Schöningen

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The Chemische Fabrik zu Schöningen was a company for the manufacture of chemical products in Schöningen in what is now Lower Saxony . It was founded in 1856 and ceased operations in December 1927.

Company history

Chemist Newspaper . XII, No. 57, 1888, p. 984

The company initially concentrated on the extraction of sulfuric acid using the lead chamber process and sodium carbonate (soda) using the Leblanc process . It was sodium chloride (common salt) with sulfuric acid to sodium sulfate reacted (Glauber's salt). Soda was obtained from the sulphate by burning it with coal and calcium carbonate (lime).

From 1858, the important chemist Justus von Liebig was a member of the company's board of directors, as he was a brother-in-law of the founding director Adolph Rose. In 1864 the company was converted into a stock corporation, some shares were also in Liebig's possession.

At Liebig's suggestion, superphosphate was already being produced in the Schöningen factory in the late 1850s . It was produced by digesting calcium phosphate from bone charcoal with sulfuric acid and hydrochloric acid . Field fertilization trials with superphosphate from Schöningen on sugar beets resulted in a record yield of 189.4 quintals per acre in 1859  . In contrast, the unfertilized sugar beet cultivation of a piece of land only reached 90.1 quintals per acre.

The company developed into the most important fertilizer manufacturer in northern Germany in the 1870s. The company built inexpensive company housing for its factory workers ; but it also required good political behavior from them. When the Social Democrat Wilhelm Bracke ran for the Reichstag election in 1874 , Director Rose threatened those employees who were to elect Bracke with dismissal at a works meeting.

The extraction of mineral fertilizers and sulfuric acid remained the company's core business until production was discontinued in the 1920s . The company went into liquidation in 1925 and was deleted from the commercial register on December 1, 1927 .

The production facilities in the south-east of the Schöningen town center, on the former Oschersleben – Schöningen railway line , were completely demolished.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heinz-Uwe Marquardt: Schöningen yesterday and today . Volume 1, Marquardt, Schöningen 1999, ISBN 3-00-004757-3 , p. 7.
  2. ^ Justus von Liebig: Letters to Vieweg . Reprint: Vieweg and Teubner, Wiesbaden 2013, ISBN 978-3-663-19706-5 , pp. 315–321.
  3. ↑ Adolph Rose: About artificial fertilizers, especially phosphorus-rich . In: Adolph Stöckhardt (Ed.): The chemical Ackersmann , Volume 4, Verlag Georg Wigand, Leipzig 1858, pp. 222-234.
  4. ^ Wilhelm Rimpau : Fertilization experiments with sugar beets, in particular with the use of fertilizers rich in phosphorus . In: Adolph Stöckhardt (Hrsg.): The chemical farm man . Volume 5, Verlag Georg Wigand, Leipzig 1859, pp. 102–110.
  5. ^ Collections of all printed matter of the German Reichstag, 2nd legislative period, 1st session 1874 , Volume 2, Julius Sittenfeld, Berlin 1874, No. 101, p. 5
  6. ^ Chamber of Commerce for the Duchy of Braunschweig (ed.): The products of the Duchy of Braunschweig. Braunschweiger Verlag for commercial education and economics, Braunschweig 1901, p. 42.
  7. ^ The chemical industry , 50th year 1927, p. 1381.

Coordinates: 52 ° 8 ′ 5 ″  N , 10 ° 58 ′ 40 ″  E