Friedrich von Heyden (chemist)

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Friedrich von Heyden (around 1910)

Friedrich von Heyden (born January 4, 1838 in Breslau , † May 1, 1926 in Dresden ; full name: Jacob Friedrich Wilhelm von Heyden-Nerfken ) was a German chemist and entrepreneur .

Life

Heydens tombstone

Friedrich von Heyden was a scion of the East Prussian noble family Heyden-Nerfken . His father was the writer Friedrich von Heyden (1789-1851), his older brother the painter and poet August von Heyden (1827-1897). Friedrich von Heyden received military training as a pioneer - a lieutenant and later lived as a landowner in wholesale Welka in Bautzen . In 1871 he moved to Dresden , where he received his doctorate in chemistry under Rudolf Schmitt at the Dresden Polytechnic in 1873 . There he met the chemist Hermann Kolbe , who in 1859 had worked out the structure of salicylic acid and the Kolbe synthesis (later developed into the Kolbe-Schmitt reaction ).

In order to be able to investigate his assumptions about the antiseptic properties of salicylic acid, von Heyden set up a laboratory at the suggestion of his Professor Schmitt in the remise of his Villa Adolpha in the suburb of Leipzig . At the same time he developed a process to be able to produce salicylic acid, the raw material for acetylsalicylic acid (ASA, aspirin), in a chemically pure industrial setting.

In order to be able to meet the increasing demand, von Heyden founded a small factory in Dresden in 1874, but it turned out to be too small in the first year of production. That is why he built a larger factory in Radebeul on the property at Meißner Strasse 35 in the same year. In 1875 the company was named Salicylic Acid Factory Dr. F. v. Heyden entered in the commercial register. By bringing in his Kolbe synthesis, Hermann Kolbe became a partner in the company, which was the first in the world to produce pharmaceuticals on an industrial scale. The construction of this factory, which developed into one of the most important chemical companies in Saxony, also marked the beginning of Radebeul's industrialization.

In 1885 von Heyden retired from the company's management. He sold it to Kolbe's son Carl Kolbe , also a chemist, who had already taken over the management in 1884, and to the businessman Carl Rentsch, but remained with the company as chairman of the supervisory board until 1919 .

Friedrich von Heyden died in 1926 and was buried in the Tolkewitz urn grove in Dresden .

honors and awards

Memorial plaque of the GDCh at the chemical factory v. Heyden, Meißner Strasse 35 in Radebeul

Friedrich von Heyden was awarded the honorary title of Privy Councilor by the King of Saxony .

In 1918 he was a legal knight of the Order of St. John , he wore the commemorative medal of Kaiser Wilhelm I , the war memorial for the campaigns of 1870–71 and the Cross of Honor for voluntary welfare.

On May 1, 1924, the Technical University of Dresden awarded von Heyden an honorary doctorate at the suggestion of the chemical department .

Since October 1, 2012, the former salicylic acid factory and later chemical factory Dr. F. von Heyden one of the historical sites of chemistry , awarded by the Society of German Chemists (GDCh) as part of a ceremony with a plaque on the main building in Radebeul. This reminds of the work of Friedrich von Heyden, Hermann Kolbe, Rudolf Schmitt , Richard Seifert and Richard Müller .

The Friedrich-von-Heyden-Platz in Nünchritz and the Friedrich-von-Heyden-Weg in Radebeul were named after him.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b life data after the entry in the Saxon biography
  2. ^ Address book Dresden 1918, p. 293.
  3. ↑ Honorary doctoral students of the TH / TU Dresden
personal data
SURNAME Heyden, Friedrich von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Heyden-Nerfken, Jacob Friedrich von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH January 4, 1838
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH May 1, 1926
Place of death Radebeul