Hans Wenking

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Hans Wenking (born August 18, 1923 in Münster , † June 19, 2007 in Buchholz ) was a German physicist and inventor . He made significant contributions to instrumentation in biocybernetics and electrochemistry , in particular the Wenking potentiostat named after him .

life and work

After studying physics in Göttingen , Wenking worked from 1952 at the Max Planck Institute for Physical Chemistry there (today: Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry ) under Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer . He commissioned him in 1954 to develop and build a new type of potentiostat . Based on a tube amplifier for oscillographs he had developed in 1952 , Wenking developed and implemented the first electronic potentiostat. Its efficiency was recognized in the professional world as early as 1955.

Until 1957, Wenking's potentiostats were only used in Göttingen. Then he began to build potentiostats for commercial marketing together with a colleague, the electronics technician Gerhard Bank. The company founded for this purpose, trading under the name Gerhard Bank Elektronik since 1959 , still exists today under the name Bank Elektronik - Intelligent Controls GmbH (status: 2015). Despite similar technical developments at around the same time in other countries, Wenkings Potentiostat achieved market leadership in the USA, among others.

In 1958, together with the biologist Bernhard Hassenstein and the physicist and biologist Werner Reichardt , he founded the world's first research group for cybernetics at the then Max Planck Institute for Biology in Tübingen , for which he developed apparatus for investigating the movement and vision of insects developed. From this group, the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics emerged . At around the same time, Wenking was also working for the Carl Zeiss company in Göttingen, for which he also developed instruments.

Wenking wrote practically no scientific publications, but his potentiostat became a standard instrument in electrochemistry . It brought a significant boost to the study of the kinetics of electrochemical processes such as corrosion , electrolysis and electrochemical passivation . Wenking potentiostats are still widely used in electrochemistry more than 50 years after Wenking's invention.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d R. Dölling: Hans Wenking, born August 18th, 1923 A problem-solver for electrochemists . In: Materials and Corrosion . tape 49 , no. 8 , August 1998, ISSN  0947-5117 , p. 535-538 , doi : 10.1002 / (SICI) 1521-4176 (199808) 49: 8 <535 :: AID-MACO535> 3.0.CO; 2-M .
  2. ↑ The history of the Max Planck campus in Tübingen - From the research group to the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics. In: tuebingen.mpg.de. Max Planck Society , 2017, accessed on August 17, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Patent US2933972 : Photo-electric polarimeter. Registered on January 25, 1956 , published on April 26, 1960 , applicant: Carl Zeiss , inventor: Hans Wenking ( also on Google Patents ). ‌
  4. ↑ Patent US3196739 : Dispersion compensated photoelectric polarimeter. Registered on March 20, 1961 , published on July 27, 1965 , applicant: Carl Zeiss , inventor: Hans Wenking, Johannes Flugge ( also on Google Patents ). ‌
  5. ↑ Allen J. Bard, György Inzelt, Fritz Scholz (eds.): Electrochemical Dictionary . 2nd Edition. Springer, Berlin and Heidelberg 2012, ISBN 978-3-642-29550-8 , pp. 969 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-642-29551-5 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  6. ^ AK Shukla, T. Prem Kumar: Pillars of Modern Electrochemistry . In: The Electrochemical Society Interface . Vol. 17, No. 3 , 2008, ISSN  1064-8208 , p. 31–39 ( online [PDF]).
  7. ^ Google Scholar. Search results "Wenking Potentiostat". Retrieved February 20, 2015 (finds over 3000 scientific publications mentioning Wenking potentiostats).
personal data
SURNAME Wenking, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist and inventor
DATE OF BIRTH August 18, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Muenster
DATE OF DEATH June 19, 2007
Place of death Buchholz