Walter Norman Haworth

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Walter Norman Haworth, 1937

Sir Norman Haworth (* 19th March 1883 in White Coppice ; † 19th March 1950 in Barnt Green in Birmingham ) was a British chemist and Nobel laureate, known for his research on sugar chemistry and structure and the Vitamin C was known.

Life

After he initially for a time in the linoleum had worked -Fabrik his father, it broke with his parents, and he studied from 1903 Chemistry at the University of Manchester , where he student of William Henry Perkin junior was. In 1906 he graduated and still go to study abroad at the University of Göttingen to where it in 1910 Otto Wallach with the work modification products of Nitrosochloride semicyklischer hydrocarbons doctorate was. In 1911 he received the D.Sc. at the University of Manchester. He became senior assistant at Imperial College London, in 1912 lecturer in chemistry at the University of St. Andrews and in 1920 professor of organic chemistry at Armstrong College, University of Durham, Newcastle. From 1925 until his retirement in 1948 he was a professor at the University of Birmingham .

Haworth dealt mainly with the chemistry of carbohydrates (sugars). In 1915 he found Haworth's sugar methylation , which became a standard method for elucidating the structure of carbohydrates, with which the ring structure of sugars could be proven, also in higher polysaccharides such as starch. He also clarified the structure of cellulose in 1927 . In 1934, together with his assistant Edmund Hirst , he succeeded in synthesizing a vitamin , namely vitamin C , for the first time (simultaneously and independently of Tadeusz Reichstein ). Before that, he clarified its structure and named it ascorbic acid. During the Second World War he was involved in a leading position in the British atomic energy or atomic bomb project.

The name furanose for 5-ring sugar and pyranose for 6-ring sugar comes from him.

Stanley Peat is one of his students .

Honors

In 1932 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . Haworth received the 1937 Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for his research on carbohydrates and vitamin C ”. He shared this award with the Swiss chemist Paul Karrer , who had also worked on vitamins.

Haworth was elected in 1928 as a member (" Fellow ") in the Royal Society , which awarded him in 1934 with the Davy Medal and in 1942 with the Royal Medal . In 1948, two years before his death, Haworth was beaten for his services to a Knight Bachelor ("Sir").

The Haworth projection , a ring formula for the representation of cyclic carbohydrates, was named after him. In 2008 the lunar crater Haworth was named after him.

literature

Web links

Commons : Norman Haworth  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Life data, publications and academic family tree of Walter Norman Haworth at academictree.org, accessed on February 9, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Haworth, Walter Norman
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British chemist
DATE OF BIRTH March 19, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH White Coppice
DATE OF DEATH March 19, 1950
Place of death Birmingham