Otto Redlich (chemist)

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Otto Redlich (born November 4, 1896 in Vienna , † August 14, 1978 in California) was an Austrian physical chemist and chemical engineer. Among other things, he was involved in the development of the Redlich-Kwong equation of state .

Life

Redlich was born in Vienna in 1896. He went to school in Vienna in the Döbling district. After graduating from high school in 1915, he joined the Austro-Hungarian army and served as an artillery officer mainly on the Italian front during World War I. He was wounded in August 1918 and taken prisoner of war . He only came back to Vienna in 1919. He studied chemistry and received his doctorate in 1922 with a thesis on the balance of nitric acid , nitrous acid and nitrogen monoxide . Redlich worked in industry for a year and then came to Emil Abel at the University of Vienna . He became a lecturer in 1929 and professor in 1937. During this time he developed the Teller-Redlich Isotope Product Rule. After Austria became part of Nazi Germany through the so-called Anschluss in March 1938, all state-employed Jews , including scientists , lost their jobs when the Nuremberg Laws were implemented . Like many other scientists, Redlich tried to leave Austria.

With the help of foreign scientists, he was able to emigrate to the United States in December 1938. He lectured at several universities and met Gilbert N. Lewis and Linus Pauling . Harold Urey helped him get a position at Washington State University . In 1945 he left college and began working in industry at Shell Development Co. in Emeryville , California . He published his work on improving the ideal gas equation in 1949, now known as the Redlich-Kwong equation of state .

In 1962, Redlich left Shell for a position at the University of California at Berkeley . In 1978 he died in California.

Fonts

  • Gilbert Newton Lewis and Merle Randall: Thermodynamics and the Free Energy of Chemical Substances. Translated and provided with additions and comments by Otto Redlich. J. Springer, Vienna 1927.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Simón Reif-Acherman: Otto Redlich: chemist and gentleman from the "old school" . In: Química Nova . 31, 2008. doi : 10.1590 / S0100-40422008000700053 .
  2. ↑ Otto Redlich, 1896–1978: in memory and appreciation . In: Fluid Phase Equilibria . 12, 1983, p. 1. doi : 10.1016 / 0378-3812 (83) 85010-9 .
personal data
SURNAME Honest, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian physical chemist and chemical engineer
DATE OF BIRTH November 4, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH August 14, 1978
Place of death California