Hans von Halban (chemist)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hans von Halban in Würzburg in December 1909

Hans von Halban (also Johann, born October 21, 1877 in Vienna ; † October 7, 1947 in Zurich ) was an Austrian-Swiss physical chemist from the Halban family .

Live and act

Hans von Halban was the son of the lawyer and director of the Vienna House of Representatives Heinrich von Halban (1844–1902). His son Hans von Halban jr. (1908–1964) became a nuclear physicist.

From 1895 he studied mechanical engineering for two semesters at the Technical University of Vienna and then chemistry at the ETH Zurich (then a polytechnic). After receiving his doctorate with Alfred Werner in 1902 on " Investigations on chromium ammonia compounds ". After a short military service in Vienna, he moved to the University of Leipzig .

There he worked with Wilhelm Ostwald until his resignation in 1905 and then until 1908 as an assistant to Max Le Blanc in Leipzig. His habilitation thesis " About the influence of solvents on the reaction rate " was accepted in 1909 by the University of Würzburg . Here, as a new private lecturer, he was commissioned by the institute's director Julius Tafel to establish a physico-chemical department.

During the First World War he served as an Austro-Hungarian war volunteer until he was seriously ill in 1916, after which he was active in the Scientific Committee for War Economics in Vienna until 1918. During his absence he was appointed associate professor in Würzburg in 1915.

His research areas built on those of Ostwald. He dealt with dissociation in electrolytes and reaction kinetics (especially kinetics of fast reactions) and developed optical methods (spectrophotometry with noble gas-filled alkali photocells) for the required precise measurement of concentrations.

Bunsen conference 1928

Since he had not been offered a full professorship in Würzburg until 1923, he tried to work for the metal company in Frankfurt am Main . In 1924 he was appointed head of the metallurgical laboratory there. In the context of the Bunsen conference in May 1928, he made contact with universities again. For the winter semester 1930/31 he received a call to succeed Victor Henri in the chair for physical chemistry at the University of Zurich. He later received Swiss citizenship.

Web links

Commons : Hans von Halban (chemist)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A. Werner, JV Halban: About Rhodanatochromammoniaksalze. VI. Communication in the series: To the knowledge of the chromium salts. In: Reports of the German Chemical Society. 39, 1906, pp. 2668-2673, doi : 10.1002 / cber.19060390364 .
  2. ↑ Klaus Koschel and Gerhard Sauer, On the history of the Chemical Institute of the University of Würzburg, pp. 66–71, self-published by the university in 1968.
  3. ↑ M. Kofler: Hans v. Halban. 1877-1947. In: Helvetica Chimica Acta. 31, 1948, pp. 120-128, doi : 10.1002 / hlca.19480310127 .
  4. ^ Obituary by Ludwig Ebert (doctorate in 1923 with von Halban) in the quarterly journal of Naturf. Society in Zurich 93, 145-149 (1948)
  5. ↑ Physically. Chemistry University of Zurich ( Memento of the original from January 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.unipublic.uzh.ch
personal data
SURNAME Halban, Hans von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian chemist (physical chemistry)
DATE OF BIRTH October 21, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH October 7, 1947
Place of death Zurich