Gerhard Krüss

Gerhard Krüss (born December 14, 1859 in Hamburg , † February 3, 1895 in Munich ) was a German chemist and founder of the Journal for Inorganic Chemistry (today: Journal for Inorganic and General Chemistry ).

Krüss was the son of the optician EJ Krüß in Hamburg (owner of the optical institute A. Krüß). After graduating from the Johanneum (Hamburg) in 1879, he studied chemistry in Munich and Heidelberg, where he was a student of Robert Wilhelm Bunsen . In 1881 he became Clemens Zimmermann's teaching assistant and received his doctorate in 1883. He completed his habilitation in Munich in 1886, where he became a private lecturer. In 1886/87 he was with Lars Fredrik Nilson at Stockholm University, with whom he was also friends and did a lot of research on rare earths. He then taught at the University of Munich, from 1890 as an associate professor (previously he had declined an appointment to the Johns Hopkins University ). In 1893 he turned down an offer to head the state chemical laboratory in Hamburg.

During his career at the University of Munich, he was involved in the development of many fields. His main focus was analytical and inorganic chemistry. In his early years he mainly dealt with the chemistry of gold compounds and the measurement of atomic masses (including gold, nickel , cobalt ). Later he was involved in research into rare earths . Krüss also postulated the existence of a new element similar to cobalt, which he called gnomium. He wanted to close a problem in the series in the series iron , cobalt, nickel in the periodic table . He dealt with spectral analysis, working together with his brother Hugo Krüß, who continued the optical company in Hamburg.

In 1889 he married a daughter of the Munich physiologist Karl von Voit , with whom he had two daughters. Krüss was very conscientious and likely died of overwork at the age of only 35.

Fonts

• with Hugo Krüß: Colorimetry and quantitative spectral analysis , 1891

literature

• LM Dennis: Gerhard Krüss (obituary). In: Journal of the American Chemical Society 17, No. 6 (1895), p. 423.
• Hugo Andres Krüß:  Krüß, Gerhard . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 51, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1906, pp. 410-412.