Nicodem Caro

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Nicodem Caro

Nikodem Caro (born May 23, 1871 in Łódź , Russian Empire , † June 27, 1935 in Rome ) was a German chemist and entrepreneur .

Life

Nikodem Caro came from a Jewish family with well-known rabbis among his ancestors. His father was a trained rabbi and worked as a merchant in Łódź, where he was also Vice Consul of the German Empire.

Caro studied chemistry at the Technische Hochschule Charlottenburg with Carl Liebermann and at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin . His thesis he wrote in 1893 in Liebermann About Oxyaurine and Oxyaurincarbonsäuren He was accompanied by Adolf Pinner at the Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Berlin in 1895 with work "the action of hydrazine on Imidoäther About" doctorate . He then founded his own chemical-technical laboratory in Berlin.

Together with Adolph Frank , he developed the Frank Caro process, named after him, for the industrial production of calcium cyanamide in 1895 when they were researching the production of cyano compounds from carbides . In the same year they received a patent for the synthesis of cyanides. This initially led to the establishment of the cyanide company in 1899 with the participation of Caro, Adolph Frank, Fritz Rothe , Siemens, Deutsche Bank and Degussa .

In 1901, Albert Frank and Hermann Freudenberg suggested using calcium cyanamide (calcium cyanamide) as a fertilizer. The first plant was built in 1905 in Piano d'Orta, Italy. In 1908 - after separating from Degussa - Bayerische nitrogen works AG was founded (from 1939 Süddeutsche Kalkstickstoffwerke AG (SKW) , later SKW Trostberg AG ) with a factory in Trostberg , of which Caro was general director from 1907. This was financed by a banking consortium led by Deutsche Bank. In this context, Caro also expanded the hydropower plants in southern Bavaria. During the First World War, large calcium cyanamide plants were founded in Piesteritz and Chorzów . From 1914 he also developed the Ostwald process for the catalytic oxidation of ammonia on an industrial scale (together with the Berlin-Anhaltische Maschinenfabrik , BAMAG). The Frank-Caro process was actually less favorable (due to higher energy consumption) than the Haber-Bosch process , which was in competition with it , but Caro was nevertheless able to keep its process competitive, especially by using the relatively cheap water power.

At the beginning of January 1933, Caro left Germany when the National Socialists came to power and stayed in Switzerland and Italy in the following years. He died in Rome but was buried in Zurich.

The hydroelectric power station III of the SKW bei Hirten was named after him in 1921. He was also an honorary citizen of 18 Bavarian municipalities, an honorary senator of various universities, two honorary doctorates and consul general. He received the honorary title of Professor and Privy Councilor . He was a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Like Fritz Haber , who was in tough competition with Caro in the nitrogen industry, he was involved in poison gas research during the First World War. He also published and researched the catalytic oxidation of ammonia , the partial liquefaction of water gas and peat gasification.

The Caro's acid is according to its namesake Heinrich Caro named. However, this is not closely related to Nicodem Caro, even if like Nicodem Caro he traced his descent to the above-mentioned known rabbinical ancestors. Both contributed to the research results of Carl Liebermann .

portrait

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Life data according to German Biographical Encyclopedia , KG Saur (article Nikodem Caro by Hans Wußing ). Sometimes Zurich is also given as the place of death.
  2. ^ Yeshiva University, Caro Family
  3. ↑ N. Caro: About oxyaurines and oxyaurine carboxylic acids. In: Reports of the German Chemical Society. Volume 25 (1892), p. 939, doi : 10.1002 / cber.189202501147 / p. 2671, doi : 10.1002 / cber.18920250290 .
  4. ↑ N. Caro: About trioxyaurine from pyrocatechol. In: Reports of the German Chemical Society. Volume 26 (1893), p. 254, doi : 10.1002 / cber.18930260155 . On p. 941: "… Mr. Prof. Liebermann prompted me to undertake the investigation communicated below, which has also achieved the goal as a whole."
  5. ↑ Before 1900, unlike universities, technical universities had no right to award doctorates. - see also obituary by C. Liebermann, page 1147.
  6. ↑ A. Pinner, N. Caro: About the action of hydrazine on imido ethers. In: Reports of the German Chemical Society. Volume 27 (1894), p. 3273, doi : 10.1002 / cber.189402703122 / Volume 28 (1895), p. 465, doi : 10.1002 / cber.189502801113 .
  7. ↑ Walther Jaenicke: 100 Years of the Bunsen Society 1894–1994. Springer-Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-642-93680-7 , p. 220 ( limited preview in Google book search), Vita Nikodem Caro.
  8. ↑ An employee of Frank and Caro who made important contributions to the development of the Frank Caro process
  9. ↑ Manfred Treml, Wolf Weigand: History and culture of the Jews in Bavaria. Walter de Gruyter, Munich 2012, p. 283.
  10. ↑ According to the article in the German Biographical Encyclopedia, he emigrated to Italy via Switzerland
  11. ^ The co-founder of SKW Trostberg AG, Nikodem Caro, chemist and entrepreneur , Evonik, accessed on January 2, 2020
  12. ↑ Short biographies at the Royal Society of Chemistry
  13. ↑ , Paul Julius Collection No. 174 (12th auction from September 16-17, 1959 by the coin dealer Richard Gaettens jun. In Heidelberg)
personal data
SURNAME Caro, Nicodem
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH May 23, 1871
PLACE OF BIRTH Łódź
DATE OF DEATH June 27, 1935
Place of death Rome