Ferdinand Münz

Ferdinand Münz (born June 23, 1888 in Krakow ; † August 16, 1969 in Glashütten im Hochtaunuskreis ) was an Austrian chemist ,

Life

Ferdinand Münz was the son of Michael and Bertha Münz. He had two brothers, Stefan and Ernest, who emigrated to the United States and became a lawyer in New York City, and a sister Amelie, who perished in the Holocaust. The family was Jewish and Polish was spoken there. In 1898 the family moved to Vienna and Ferdinand Münz chose Austrian citizenship after the collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1919. Coin studied after high school at the State Secondary School in District 5, and military service in 1906 at the Vienna University of Technology chemical engineering. In 1909 the first state examination took place and in 1910 he received the title of engineer. In 1911 he received his doctorate under Eugen Bamberger and Hermann Suidas (1887–1973), although he only passed the exam on the second attempt. The dissertation was the synthesis of an anthranol indigo and the corresponding sulfur indigo and already determined the field of activity of his future activity, textile dyes and textile dyeing. In the dissertation, he also thanked his academic teacher Paul Friedlaender , a student of Adolf von Baeyer , for suggesting the dissertation and for advice. Adolf von Baeyer synthesized indigo and Friedländer thioindigo (topic of Münz's dissertation). After receiving his doctorate, he went to industry in Germany, first with Pongs and Zahn in Viersen near Düsseldorf. In May 1914 he went to the Leopold Cassella company in their main factory in Fechenheim, later part of IG Farben. In 1927 he came to the company's central laboratory in Fechenheim (now part of Maintal ) , headed by Georg Kalischer . His main research was textile dyeing. He lived in Fechenheim-Mainkur and Frankfurt am Main. From November 25 to December 1, 1938, he was interned in Buchenwald concentration camp. At the end of the 1930s, he married Maria Ewald (1897–1964), who was not Jewish and with whom he had two children, Ferdinand Münz junior and Ilse Münz. The family lived near the IG Farben headquarters in Frankfurt. As a Jew, Münz could not do research openly, but worked closely with Otto Bayer from IG Farben. He remained friends with him at Cassella in Frankfurt and their collaboration on patents lasted until the 1960s. In the meantime he had an important reputation due to his patents and his research, but his patents often appeared without being named during the National Socialist era. On February 18, 1945, he was sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, but released on April 9, before it was liberated by the Soviet Union. This was partly thanks to the work of his wife, partly to the influence of IG Farben, for which he immediately continued to work. At the end of 1945 he moved to Stammheim near Cologne and worked for their branch in Leverkusen, the later Bayer works, where his friend Otto Bayer headed the research laboratory. In the years after 1945 he worked closely with the later Nobel Prize winner Kurt Alder , who became head of research in Leverkusen. In 1949 they published a paper on diene synthesis. Alder worked on synthetic rubber with butadiene, for which the EDTA developed by Münz in the 1930s was used. In 1956 he retired. In 1957 he visited the USA.

EDTA

Münz first synthesized EDTA (ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid) at IG Farben in 1935 . He was also the first to have a process for EDTA synthesis patented: anonymously in Germany in 1935 and in 1936 and 1937 under his name in the USA. His goal was to produce a citric acid substitute in order to reduce Germany's dependence on imports of chemical products from abroad. Münz noticed that an aminocarboxylic acid works much better as a complexing agent than citric acid . From this he concluded that a polyaminopolycarboxylic acid would be even more suitable.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Paolieri Matteo: Ferdinand Münz: EDTA and 40 years of inventions In: ACS Bulletin for the History of Chemistry. 42 (2), 2017, pp. 133-140.
2. ↑ Ferdinand Münz: Polyamino carboxylic acids and process of making same. US patent 2130505 . United States Patent and Trademark Office , September 20, 1938.