Heinrich Caro

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Heinrich Caro ca1900.jpg

Heinrich Caro (born February 13, 1834 in Posen , † September 11, 1910 in Dresden ) was a German chemist .

Life and accomplishments

Caro was of Sephardic Jewish origin and was born the son of a manager of a grain company in Poznan. In 1842 he went to a secondary school in Berlin and then studied chemistry at the Berlin Industrial Institute and the Berlin University. In 1855 he went to Mülheim ad Ruhr to learn dyeing and calico printing. In 1856 he was a co-founder of the Association of German Engineers (VDI). In November 1859, Caro traveled to Manchester to visit a dye works and printer (Roberts, Dale & Co.). He used aniline to dye fabrics. There he quickly became a partner in a newly affiliated paint factory because he was able to contribute to decisive improvements in mauvein production .

When Caro was in London , he met Peter Grieß . During this time he also developed yellow dyes (for example: amidoazobenzene and indulin ) and dinitronaphthol and married the Englishwoman Sarah Eaton (1842–1917). His contacts extended to Ludwig Mond and Friedrich Engels . Some of his employees were Caro's children.

Memorial plaque on Caro's former house in the C8 block , Mannheim

However, health problems led to a return to Germany. In 1867 he sold his company shares in order to study the structural chemistry of aromatic compounds with the Italian chemist Stanislao Cannizzaro in Palermo . On May 10, 1865, the Badische Anilin und Sodafabrik was founded. On November 1, 1868, Caro became co-managing director alongside the BASF founder Friedrich Engelhorn , BASF.

Carl Graebe and Carl Liebermann , who had discovered a synthesis of alizarin , came into contact with Caro in 1869. In addition to setting up an in-house research laboratory, his first major project was the large-scale synthesis of alizarin. Using the same preliminary work by Carl Graebe and Carl Liebermann, William Henry Perkin also applied for a patent for the same process just one day later . However, both quickly agreed on joint marketing, which ultimately brought BASF an international reputation and access to the world market.

In 1876, Caro and Otto Nikolaus Witt founded the azo dye industry through the discovery of chrysoidine . A year later, Caro methylene blue was the first patent on colors in Germany to be patented. He later synthesized an indigo dye ( small indigo ) together with Adolf von Baeyer .

Caros grave in Mannheim

His other work included the development of real red , eosin , malachite green and aurin and the isolation of acridine . Caro's acid, peroxomonosulfuric acid (H 2 SO 5 ), was named after him. In 1884 Caro became a board member of BASF and in 1890 moved to the supervisory board. In the years 1892 and 1893 he was chairman of the Association of German Engineers.

His tomb at the main cemetery in Mannheim is a marble aedicula on a stepped base with a segmental bulge. Doric columns and triangular gables with palm frond relief and drapery. In the middle is an elongated, ornamented, ivy-covered mock urn on a pedestal in the niche.

Caro was an honorary doctor of several universities and a councilor from Baden. In 1897 the VDI awarded him honorary membership. A street in the Maxdorf BASF housing estate Carostraße was named in his honor.

literature

  • Günther Bugge: The book of the great chemists. Second volume. From Liebig to Arrhenius . Verlag Chemie, Berlin 1930 (unaltered reprint 1955)
  • Karl Saftien:  Caro, Heinrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 152 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Carsten Reinhardt, Anthony S. Travis: Heinrich Caro and the Creation of Modern Chemical Industry , Springer 2000

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Klaus P. Fischer: The History of an Obsession: German Judeophobia and the Holocaust , 1998, p. 95
  2. ^ The chemist in the course of time , Verlag Chemie 1973, p. 282.
  3. ^ Marie-Luise Heuser , Wolfgang König : Tabular compilations on the history of the VDI . In: Karl-Heinz Ludwig (Ed.): Technology, Engineers and Society - History of the Association of German Engineers 1856–1981 . VDI-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1981, ISBN 3-18-400510-0 , p. 566 .
  4. ^ W. Münkel: Die Friedhöfe in Mannheim , SVA 1992, p. 143.
  5. ↑ Manfred Beckert: The VDI in its early days . In: Association of German Engineers (ed.): Festschrift 140 years of VDI . Düsseldorf May 1996, p. 22 .

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personal data
SURNAME Caro, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist
DATE OF BIRTH February 13, 1834
PLACE OF BIRTH Poses
DATE OF DEATH September 11, 1910
Place of death Dresden