Institute for Stable Isotopes

Tower and part of the main building of the former Institute for Stable Isotopes

The Institute for Stable Isotopes (abbreviated IsI ) was a non-university research facility of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin (DAW), which existed in Leipzig from 1957 to 1970 and then became part of the Central Institute for Isotope and Radiation Research . The institute dealt with the isotopic composition of chemical elements, as well as their influence, measurement and use.

history

In the summer of 1955, the physicist Justus Mühlenpfordt, who had returned to the Soviet Union after ten years of working in the Soviet Union, founded a department for applied physical separation of substances in the Institute for Organic-Chemical Industry on the site of the former HASAG armaments factory on Leipzig's Permoserstraße . The Institute for Physical Separation of Materials emerged from this in 1957 , and Mühlenpfordt became its director. In 1964 it was renamed the Institute for Stable Isotopes .

In 1957 the institute already had 63 employees, and in the 1960s there were well over 100 with about 25% scientists.

In the early years, the institute was partly dependent on makeshift rooms in a barrack and smaller new buildings, such as a laboratory building and a small column tower. From 1959 to 1964, a large new institute building with a tower for long separation columns was built.

From 1964, the research results were mainly published in the specialist journal Isotopenpraxis founded by Justus Mühlenpfordt (stable isotopes) and Carl Friedrich Weiss (radionuclides) . The international workshop on stable isotopes (ASTI) took place every two years from 1959 .

In the course of the reform of the academy, which, in addition to political goals, also pursued the formation of larger research institutions, the Institute for Stable Isotopes became the Central Institute for Isotope Research in 1970 with the Institute for Applied Radioactivity , the Laboratory for Statistical Physics and the Institute for Applied Isotope Research in Berlin-Buch. and radiation research , which was wound up in 1991.

The directors of the Institute for Stable Isotopes were Justus Mühlenpfordt (1957–1968), Günter Kretzschmann (1968–1970) and Heinrich Hübner (1970).

Work areas

The aim of the Institute for Stable Isotopes was to create the conditions for the versatile use of stable isotopes in research and technology. The tasks to be solved were divided into the work areas

• Methods of extracting or enriching stable isotopes up to their operation on a semi-industrial scale and their ongoing optimization. ² H, ¹⁰ B, ¹¹ B, ¹⁵ N, ¹⁸ O, ²⁰ Ne, ²² Ne, ³⁶ Ar and ⁸⁶ Kr were enriched .
• Analysis of stable isotopes with mass spectrometric methods and development of non- mass spectrometric methods.
• Methodology of the applications of stable isotopes
• Own work on the application of stable isotopes in chemistry, physics, biology, medicine and agriculture
• Use of the natural variation in the isotopic composition of chemical elements.

With this range of tasks, the institute also represented a certain uniqueness in the international research landscape.

The building

The main building of the Institute for Stable Isotopes was constructed in two stages from 1959 to 1962 and from 1962 to 1964. The architects were Berthold Schneider and Lothar Mothes from the Hochbau design office at the City Council of Leipzig. The building is a monolithic reinforced concrete structure. The columns and crossbars are clad with precast exposed concrete, while the remaining areas are covered with clinker tiles, which vary in color and thus create a relaxed impression.

In the entrance area there is a mural by Bert Heller , which shows an excerpt from the periodic table of the elements, as well as a quote from Bertolt Brecht and a female figure as an allegorical picture for the course of the earth around the sun.

The tower, which was connected to the institute wing via a three-storey passage, was used in particular to accommodate very high separating columns. The 40-meter-high, eleven-storey tower has a continuous ribbon of windows on its south side and an escape staircase on its east side. It is crowned by an umbrella-like structure, the roof of which could be raised for ventilation purposes. It is characteristic of the cityscape of the north-east of Leipzig.

The building ensemble is a listed building . Today it belongs to the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research - UFZ . Guest apartments and a data center were set up in the tower, which was renovated in 1996.

literature

• UFZ Environmental Research Center Leipzig-Halle (Ed.): Leipzig Permoserstraße. On the history of an industrial and scientific location . Passage-Verlag Leipzig 2001, ISBN 3-932900-61-8 , pp. 121, 148/149, 158-165
• Justus Mühlenpfordt: The Institute for Stable Isotopes, Leipzig. In: Isotopenpraxis, Volume 2 (1966), Issue 3, pp. 113–115

Individual evidence

1. ^ Leipzig Permoserstraße. On the history of an industrial and scientific location, pp. 148/149
2. ^ Leipzig Permoserstraße. On the history of an industrial and scientific location , p. 185
3. ↑ List of cultural monuments in Sellerhausen-Stünz , ID number 09292457 (2nd page, map)

Coordinates: 51 ° 21 ′ 10 "  N , 12 ° 25 ′ 51.2"  E