Klaus Clusius

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Klaus Alfred Paul Clusius (actually Klaus Paul Alfred Clusius ; born March 19, 1903 in Breslau , Province of Silesia , † May 28, 1963 in Zurich ) was a German physical chemist and low-temperature physicist .

Life

Klaus Clusius was the son of a doctor. After graduating from a humanistic grammar school in Wroclaw , he studied physical chemistry at the Technical University of Wroclaw . After completing his spectroscopic diploma thesis under Rudolf Suhrmann , he became assistant to Arnold Eucken from 1926 to 1929 , who received his doctorate in 1928 with a dissertation on the specific heat of condensed gases.

With two foreign scholarships in 1929 and 1930, which the Rockefeller Foundation granted him, he studied with Cyril Norman Hinshelwood at the University of Oxford and at the Kamerlingh Onnes Institute of the University of Leiden . In 1930 he followed his teacher Arnold Eucken to the University of Göttingen and completed his habilitation there in the same year. From 1934 to 1936 he was an associate professor for physical chemistry at the University of Würzburg . After Kasimir Fajans was forced to emigrate to the USA, Clusius was transferred by the Reich Ministry in 1936 to his vacant chair at the University of Munich . In 1942 he gave a lecture on the enrichment of uranium isotopes at the second meeting of the working group “Nuclear Research” of the uranium project of the Reich Research Council, and in January 1943, at the public meeting of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, he gave the keynote address “Raw materials and energy supplies in the world”.

After the war ended in 1945, Clusius worked on the reconstruction of Munich University, where he was director of the physico-chemical institute and dean . Together with Walther Meißner , he founded the commission for low temperature research of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in 1946 .

In 1947 he was appointed full professor at the University of Zurich , where he was appointed head of the physico-chemical institute.

Clusius carried out fundamental investigations into reaction kinetics, in particular chemical chain reactions as well as phase transformations of substances and their properties at low temperatures . In 1938, together with Gerhard Dickel, he developed a process for the separation of stable isotopes and their enrichment by means of thermal diffusion ( separation tube according to Clusius and Dickel ). During this time he also worked on the history of chemistry and physics and published numerous articles in scientific journals.

In 1940 Clusius was elected a full member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, and in 1942 of the Leopoldina . He was also a member of the Natural Research Society in Zurich .

For his scientific success he received several prizes, including the Marcel Benoist Prize in 1958 and the Dechema Prize in 1960 ; the Technical University of Hanover awarded him an honorary doctorate .

Works ( selection )

  • Physical chemistry . Wiesbaden, Verlag Dieterich, 1948
  • Liquid hydrogen . Zurich, Verlag Fretz, 1956
  • The separation pipe. For the enrichment of the isotopes 79 Br and 81 Br . 1957

literature

  • Liquid hydrogen . Klaus Clusius. Quarterly d. Natural Research Society in Zurich. Born 100, Beih. 2nd 1956
  • Klaus Clusius, Gerhard Dickel: New process for gas segregation and isotope separation. Die Naturwissenschaften 26 (1938) p. 546
  • Klaus Clusius, Gerhard Dickel: The separation pipe. - I. Basics of a new process for gas segregation and isotropic separation by thermal diffusion. Journal for physical chemistry B 44 (1939) pp 397-450
  • Klaus Clusius, Gerhard Dickel: The separation pipe. - II. Separation of Chlorine Isotopes. Journal for physical chemistry B 44 (1939) pp 451-473.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Georg-Maria Schwab: Obituary in the 1964 yearbook of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences.
  2. ↑ Louis Frederick Fieser , Mary Fieser : Organic chemistry . 2nd edition. Verlag Chemie, Weinheim 1972, p. 872, ISBN 3-527-25075-1 .
  3. ^ Kuno Schleich: Klaus Clusius (1903–1963). In: Quarterly publication of the Natural Research Society in Zurich. Volume 108, 1963, pp. 473-475 (Nekrolog), p. 473.
  4. ↑ Life data, publications and academic family tree of Klaus Clusius at academictree.org, accessed on January 28, 2018.
  5. ^ Klaus Koschel: The development and differentiation of the subject chemistry at the University of Würzburg. In: Peter Baumgart (Ed.): Four hundred years of the University of Würzburg. A commemorative publication. Degener & Co. (Gerhard Gessner), Neustadt an der Aisch 1982 (= sources and contributions to the history of the University of Würzburg. Volume 6), ISBN 3-7686-9062-8 , pp. 703–749; here: p. 732.
  6. ↑ Head of the institute
  7. ↑ full member of the BAdW.
personal data
SURNAME Clusius, Klaus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Clusius, Klaus Paul Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physical chemist and low-temperature physicist
DATE OF BIRTH March 19, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw , Province of Silesia
DATE OF DEATH May 28, 1963
Place of death Zurich