Institute for Plant and Wood Chemistry Tharandt
The Institute of Plant and Wood Chemistry Tharandt deals with issues of plant chemistry , wood chemistry , Immissionsforschung and agricultural chemistry .
The focus is on flue gas research and natural product chemistry , especially lignin and cellulose research , and at times also on wood extracts. The institute has 20 employees, including five doctoral students. It is integrated into the Faculty of Forestry, Geosciences and Hydro Sciences at the Technical University of Dresden and is based in Tharandt im Judeich -Bau. The immission ecological test field in the Tharandt forest not far from the Warnsdorf spring belongs to the institute . With the help of a computer-controlled harmful gas metering system, plants can be exposed to harmful gas emissions that are artificially measured in nature. The Oberbärenburg forest measuring station was also part of it until 2002 , from which the longest series of pollutant measurements in Saxony were determined.
The outstanding research results include the early detection of the connection between smoke gases and vegetation damage and the development of a lattice chimney to improve the swirling of smoke gases. A series of investigations by Hans Wislicenus is considered to be the basic literature on vegetation damage. Hans-Günther Däßler's summary, "Influence of air pollution on vegetation - causes, effects and countermeasures", is recognized as a textbook and standard work at the end of the 20th century.
history
Heinrich Cotta opened a private forestry school in 1811, from which the Tharandt State Forestry University emerged in 1816 . Three years later the classes expanded to include chemical soil science. A first laboratory was set up in 1844 in Hafergasse, now Cottastraße 11.
Agricultural Chemistry
From 1770 onwards, attempts were made in Saxony to use fertilizer salts to increase the fertility of the soil. The Secret Cabinet and, from 1831, the Ministry of the Interior were aware that Saxony was backward in agriculture. From 1784 the property regime remained in focus, but it was not until 1832 that the government began to modernize agriculture by relieving the feudal burden. While still a teacher of natural sciences at the Royal Saxon Trade School in Chemnitz, the chemist Julius Adolph Stöckhardt submitted a petition to the meeting of the estates to provide funds for the training of agricultural chemists. His request was rejected, but led to a lively discussion in both chambers. At the request of the general secretary of the agricultural associations of Saxony, Theodor Reuning, the first chair for agricultural chemistry was established in the German Confederation in 1847, and Stöckhardt was appointed to the chair. Later he propagated nitrogen fertilization against Justus von Liebig and also against Theodor Reuning.
The productivity of Saxon agriculture increased soon after the feudal burdens were replaced . Artificial fertilizers were used more and more. The consumption of nitrogen-containing guano flour , which was then regarded as an artificial fertilizer, rose in Saxony from 5 hundredweight in 1842 to 120,000 hundredweight (60 tons) in 1854. Grain production and livestock increased. The full farmers and to a lesser extent the manors were able to enlarge their farms. Agriculture was able to supply the population, which was becoming more urban. On the other hand, the increasing revenue made it easier for full farmers to earn the high transfer amounts. Without the agricultural chemical progress in agriculture, feudal replacement and industrialization could have taken a less favorable course.
From 1847 to 1883 Stöckhardt also headed the laboratory. In the laboratory, the students should achieve greater clarity and stability in chemical knowledge through their own productive work. From Easter 1849 to Easter 1866 about 20 farmers and 20 foresters worked in the laboratory.
Wood and plant chemistry, smoke damage research
The competition for use as a result of the mixture of forest and industrial areas prompted the Kingdom of Saxony, as the damaged forest owner, to press ahead with research into the causes of the damage to vegetation. Through a publication by Julius Adolph Stöckhardt, the Tharandt Forestry University became the birthplace of smoke damage research in 1850. Stöckhardt attributed the vegetation damage more to sulfur dioxide and heavy metals than to carbon compounds. The prevailing south-westerly wind carried these pollutants from the Freiberg smelting works, mountain forges and the Halsbrücke amalgamation plant into the Tharandt forest. Most of the sulfur-containing coal used there came from the Döhlen basin .
From 1883 to 1895 Julius von Schroeder held a chair. In 1883 he published the study "The damage to vegetation by smoke and the Upper Harz hut smoke damage". Julius von Schroeder began researching tannin chemistry in 1878 , particularly with the determination of the tannin content in bark. He made his findings available for practical use in the German Tanner School he founded in Freiberg.
Hans Wislicenus held a chair from 1896 to 1935. He initially intensified research into smoke gas damage and published his studies in eleven booklets under the title “Collection and Treatise on Exhaust Gases and Smoke Damage”. For a long time, they were the decisive basic literature for the complex consideration of forest damage. The work was reprinted in 1985 under the popular title “Forest dieback in the 19th century”. In 1911 Wislicenus constructed a lattice chimney to swirl smoke gases to prevent forest damage. The "dissipation chimney" was not accepted by the manufacturers; they propagated high chimneys. For example, the highest chimney in Europe at that time was built in Halsbrücke near Freiberg.
From 1914 to 1918 a process was developed with which the turpentine of the pine can be extracted as pure as possible. In 1920 the laboratory was named "Institute". The focus of the research shifted to the material use of wood and later to terpenes and other wood extracts such as resins, essential oils and fragrances. In 1931 the institute was expanded and moved into the “Stöckhardt Building”.
Heinrich Wienhaus , one of the most important terpene chemists of his time, was director of the institute from 1935 to 1957. In 1938, research was carried out on the osmosis wood protection process by introducing salt solutions into the wood. A test field was created on the institute premises.
The Soviet military administration temporarily secured the institute in 1945. About 3000 volumes from the library were loaded for the University of Kiev. Heinrich Wienhaus stayed with a chemical technician. The resumption of teaching took place in 1947. From 1952 the institute worked again with the capacity of 1936.
From 1957 to 1963, the research focus was again on terpene chemistry. In 1957 Erich Zieger was acting director of the institute. The smoke damage research department was founded in 1961. From 1962 to 1963 there was a second phase of expanding the test field.
From 1963 to 1968, under the direction of Hans-Günther Däßler, there was a return from wood extracts to primary plant constituents. During this period, the institute dealt with the production of phenols from vegetable polyphenols and nitrogen fertilizers as well as the use of resins. Other focal points were the single-stage extraction of activated charcoal , the extraction of furfural from beech bark as well as attempts at alternative wood digestion with dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO).
In 1968 the institute was renamed "Scientific Area Plant Chemistry"; Däßler remained his leader. From 1968 to 1989 the institute concentrated on three main areas of wood chemistry: firstly, the extraction of wood and activated charcoal from wood residues using the flushing gas and shaft furnace method , secondly, lignin chemistry and lignin utilization, and thirdly, the chemistry of wood extractives, especially tall oil extraction and processing plants. From 1970 the institute dedicated itself to the research complex keeping the air clean. From 1972 the institute carried out research on the COMECON topic "Influence of air pollution on forest communities and agrobiocenoses". In 1981 the research dealt with pollution damage in the ore and Elbe sandstone mountains . The summarizing description of Däßler's influence of air pollution on vegetation - causes, effects and countermeasures was used as a textbook and standard work.
After the accession of the new federal states to the Federal Republic of Germany, it was renamed “Institute for Plant and Wood Chemistry” in 1990. The pollution-ecological test field in the Tharandt forest has been reconstructed since 1991. Since 2000 the institute has been using the new “Judeich-Bau” building at Pienner Strasse 19 together with other university institutions. The construction costs amounted to 25.23 million DM, the costs of the initial installation to 2.67 million DM.
Directors of the institute
- 1920–1935: Hans Wislicenus
- 1935–1957: Heinrich Wienhaus
- 1958–1960: Roland Mayer
- 1961–1966: Friedrich Fischer
- 1966–1974: Hans-Günter Däßler
- 1975–1984: Friedrich Fischer
- 1985–1990: Klaus Fischer
- 1990–1994: Otto Wienhaus
- 1994–1996: Klaus Fischer
- 1996–2000: Otto Wienhaus
- 2000–2006: Klaus Fischer
- since 2006: Steffen Fischer
literature
- Reiner Groß , The civil agricultural reform in Saxony in the first half of the 19th century , Weimar 1968
- Reiner Groß , History of Saxony , Berlin 2001
- Heiner Hegewald: Plant Chemistry, Wood Chemistry, Immission Research , Agricultural Chemistry, The Tharandt Chemical Institute - Past and Present, Dresden 2010
- Wolfgang Reichel / Manfred Schauer, The Döhlen Basin near Dresden - Geology and Mining -, Dresden 2007
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hegewald, Holzchemie, p. 1.
- ↑ Hegewald, Holzchemie, p. 3.
- ↑ Hegewald, Holzchemie, p. 67.
- ↑ a b Hegewald, Holzchemie, p. 10.
- ↑ Groß, Geschichte Sachsens, p. 163.
- ↑ Groß, Geschichte Sachsens, p. 206.
- ↑ a b Hegewald, Holzchemie, p. 15.
- ↑ Groß, Geschichte Sachsens, p. 208.
- ↑ Groß, Bürgerliche Agrarreform p. 154.
- ↑ Groß, Geschichte Sachsens, p. 206 f.
- ↑ Groß, Bürgerliche Agrarreform p. 150 ff.
- ↑ Hegewald, Holzchemie, 16
- ↑ Hegewald, Holzchemie, p. 17.
- ↑ a b Hegewald, Holzchemie, p. 19.
- ^ Reichel / Schauer, Döhlener Becken, pp. 310f, 315, 320.
- ↑ Hegewald, Holzchemie, p. 27.
- ↑ a b Hegewald, Holzchemie, p. 31.
- ↑ Hegewald, Holzchemie, p. 34.
- ↑ Hegewald, Holzchemie, p. 39.
- ↑ Hegewald, Holzchemie, p. 40.
- ↑ Hegewald, Holzchemie, p. 41.
- ↑ Hegewald, Holzchemie, p. 42.
- ↑ Hegewald, Holzchemie, p. 52.
- ↑ a b Hegewald, Holzchemie, p. 58.
- ↑ Hegewald, Holzchemie, p. 53.
- ↑ Hegewald, Holzchemie, p. 59.
- ↑ Hegewald, Holzchemie, p. 66.
- ^ News from the University of Dresden from January 5, 2000
- ↑ Hegewald, Holzchemie, p. 8.
- ↑ Hegewald, Holzchemie, pp. 36, 83.
- ↑ Hegewald, Holzchemie, p. 45.
- ↑ Hegewald, Holzchemie, p. 90.
- ↑ Hegewald, Holzchemie, pp. 58,101.
- ↑ Hegewald, Holzchemie, pp. 62,111.
- ↑ Hegewald, Holzchemie, pp. 66,123.
- ↑ Hegewald, Holzchemie, p. 69