Karl Fischer (chemist)

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Karl Albert Otto Franz Fischer (born March 24, 1901 in Pasing / Munich , † April 16, 1958 ) was a German chemist .

life and work

Born in Bavaria, Fischer spent his youth in Leipzig and studied chemistry from 1918 to 1924 at the university there , with Wilhelm Böttger among others . It was in 1925 with the work of various studies on the influence Magnesiumoxydpräparate for their effect on vulcanization and properties of the rubber to the Dr. phil. PhD. He then stayed until 1927 as Böttger's university assistant in Leipzig, where he also married. He then worked in industrial petrochemicals . At Edeleanu GmbH he was initially employed in Berlin, then in various outposts. In 1936 he became head of the company's central laboratory. In 1945 he went to the University of Maryland as a professor of petrochemistry , but returned to Germany in 1950 and took over the management of the central laboratory of the DEA in Hamburg-Wilhelmsburg as director and chief chemist . A few years later he suffered a heart attack while traveling by plane , but survived it. He died of a second heart attack in his apartment in 1958. His estate is in the Chemistry Department of the University of Hamburg and is to be scientifically processed.

He was best known for the titrimetric method he developed in 1935 to determine the water content in liquids and solids. He published it in the journal Angewandte Chemie , but the first monograph on the process did not appear until 1953. The Karl Fischer process is still used today in analytical laboratories and is the legal standard method in almost every pharmacopoeia worldwide .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rolf Steiner: In memory of Karl Fischer. In: International Laboratory. Volume 31, number 3, March 1992, p. 31 f.
  2. ↑ Karl Fischer: New method for the analytical determination of the water content of liquids and solid bodies. In: Angewandte Chemie . Volume 48, 1935, pp. 394-396.
  3. ^ Ernst Eberius : Water determination with Karl Fischer solution. Verlag Chemie, Berlin 1953.
personal data
SURNAME Fischer, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fischer, Karl Albert Otto Franz (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist
DATE OF BIRTH March 24, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Pasing , Munich
DATE OF DEATH April 16, 1958