Hermann Gruneberg

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Hermann Gruneberg

Hermann Julius Grüneberg (born April 11, 1827 in Stettin ; † June 7, 1894 in Cologne ) was a German pharmacist, chemist and entrepreneur who is considered a pioneer of the German potash industry and pioneer of mineral fertilization in agriculture.

life and work

Grüneberg was the second of six children of the organ builder August Wilhelm Grüneberg and his wife Caroline Henriette nee. Breslich from Cammin ; one of his brothers was Barnim Grüneberg , who continued his father's organ building workshop.

Hermann Grüneberg attended elementary school at the Johanniskirche and later the grammar school and the Friedrich Wilhelm school in Stettin. His professional life began with an apprenticeship as a pharmacist and an apprenticeship at the Zum Pelikan pharmacy in Stettin. In this pharmacy - one of the largest in the country - Grüneberg worked for a long time in the laboratory under the direction of the chemist G. Garbe.

After completing military service, in September 1850, Grüneberg received the royal Prussian patent for a device for supplying and distributing the substances required for the production of white lead . The establishment of a factory for the production of white lead using his method in Sweden was successful, so that he built a similar factory in Alt-Damm near Stettin.

After studying in Berlin with Eilhard Mitscherlich and Gustav Rose , as well as in Paris with Boussignault and Georges Ville , study trips followed through Germany , Switzerland , France , England and Scotland , where he collected and noted experiences in around 130 companies. In 1860, Grüneberg received his doctorate in Leipzig on the theory of white lead production . Through his research and experiments, he achieved significant improvements in the quality and properties of white lead.

The lack of saltpeter for the production of black powder triggered by the Crimean War prompted Grüneberg to produce for the first time artificial potash nitrate by decomposing sodium nitrate with potash in a large plant he built in Bredow near Stettin. His invention introduced a branch of manufacture in Germany that almost completely replaced the foreign bengal nitrate .

The chemist Hermann Grüneberg and the businessman Julius Vorster founded the company Vorster & Grüneberg in Kalk near Cologne on November 1, 1858 , which later developed as Chemische Fabrik Kalk GmbH into one of the leading large companies in the chemical industry in Germany. In February 1859, the production of potash nitrate started in Kalk using the Grüneberg method.

In May 1859, Grüneberg began with attempts to represent the sulfuric acid potash from the Staßfurter resp. Anhaltinian overburden salts from the overburden salts of the salt mines . In 1861 and 1862, Vorster & Grüneberg potash factories in Staßfurt and Leopoldshall were put into operation. On August 30, 1862, the royal Prussian patent No. IV 8062 was granted. 1865 potash was first after the otherwise only Sodaerzeugung applied Leblanc process produces. At the world exhibitions in Paris and Philadelphia , the Grüneberg products were awarded gold medals for their special quality and purity. The company received silver and bronze medals at exhibitions in Vienna , Harlem, Porto , Chemnitz , Metz , Cologne and Stettin, as well as an Honorable Mention in London .

In the following years, Grüneberg received imperial patents for the preparation of strontium carbonate (1878), of Schönite (1879) and for the extraction of Schönite from Kainite (1882).

Grünebergsche fertilizer table

Based on the findings of Justus von Liebig , Hermann Grüneberg played a key role in the introduction of mineral fertilization in agriculture through experiments, lectures and publications. Together with the French chemists Boussignault and Ville, he first introduced container tests for fertilization. The fertilizer table published by him became an indispensable aid for agriculture for decades.

Grüneberg constructed the Grüneberg apparatus for the continuous distillation of ammonia from previously unused sources - the gas water that occurs in the production of luminous gas in large cities . The device was patented on May 10, 1878 by the Imperial Patent Office under the number 5255 and operated in around 100 plants worldwide. Patents for Austria , Hungary , Italy , France , Great Britain and the USA followed . Vorster & Grüneberg built ammonia factories in Raderberg , Köln-Nippes , Düsseldorf , Dortmund and Essen . The largest plants were operated in Leipzig , Hamburg , Moscow and Saint Petersburg .

Hermann Grüneberg founded the VDI district association Cologne and, together with the Cologne entrepreneur Eugen Langen, the West German Association for the Protection of Invention , later the German Patent Protection Association. He was later co-founder and second chairman of the German Chemical Association . He was chairman of the trade association section IV ( Rhineland and Westphalia ) and representative of the chemical industry in the Rhenish railway council.

Hermann Julius Grüneberg family grave in the Melaten cemetery

One year after his appointment as Kommerzienrat , Grüneberg died and was buried in the family grave designed by the Berlin architect Otto March and the sculptor Robert Toberentz in the Mittelallee of Cologne's Melaten cemetery . The Grüneberg-Schule and the Grünebergstraße in Cologne-Kalk as well as a marble bust of Hugo Lederer in the Cologne City Museum remind of him .

literature

swell

  1. ↑ View of the ammonia apparatus on zeno.org
  2. ^ Josef Abt, Johann Ralf Beines, Celia Körber-Leupold: Melaten - Cologne graves and history . Greven, Cologne 1997, ISBN 3-7743-0305-3 , p. 104 f.

Web links

Commons : Hermann Grüneberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Grüneberg, Hermann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grüneberg, Hermann Julius (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH April 11, 1827
PLACE OF BIRTH Szczecin
DATE OF DEATH June 7, 1894
Place of death Cologne