Søren Sørensen

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SPL Sørensen (undated photo)

Søren Peter Lauritz Sørensen , also Severinus, (known in Denmark as SPL Sørensen ; born January 9, 1868 in Havrebjerg , Denmark , † February 13, 1939 in Copenhagen ) was a Danish biochemist.

Life

Søren Sørensen was the son of a small farmer and studied medicine from 1886 and soon afterwards chemistry at the University of Copenhagen . In 1891 he passed his master's degree. He was then assistant to Sophus Mads Jørgensen from 1892 to 1901 and, from 1896 to 1902, adviser to the royal Danish warship yard. In 1899 he received his doctorate. From 1901 to 1938 he was Johan Kjeldahl's head of the chemistry department at the Carlsberg Laboratory , which was supported by the brewery of the same name. At that time, he was studying the influence of ion concentration on the analysis of proteins, eventually becoming an expert in the thermodynamics of protein chemistry. In this work he was supported by his wife, Margrethe Høyrup Sørensen. In 1907 he became a professor at the Carlsberg Laboratory. In 1938 he retired. His successor was his student Kaj Ulrik Linderstrøm-Lang .

One of Sörensen's achievements was to establish the pH value scale in 1909. He followed a suggestion by Hans Wilhelm Carl Friedenthal and Friedenthal, Pál Szily and Sørensen made lists of substances that could be used as indicators. His name is also connected to the named after him Sørensen buffer (citrate, phosphate and borate solutions), the formol titration , as well as the type known as "sodium oxalate by Sørensen" volumetric standard (1896).

In the years before the turn of the century, he dealt with the pure preparation of salts, in particular of chrome and nickel salts. At the Carlsberg Laboratory, he worked on proteins and enzymes. For example, he synthesized amino acids and clarified the structure of arginine .

Honors

In 1928 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

In 1937 he became a member of the Leopoldina and in 1938 of the National Academy of Sciences .

From 1938 to 1939 he was also President of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences .

On May 29, 2018, Sørensen was honored by the search engine Google with an interactive doodle , which uses a short quiz to explain the importance of the pH value to users.

literature

Fonts

  • Proteins, 1924

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Derek Lowe, Das Chemiebuch, Librero 2017, p. 240
  2. ↑ Søren Sørensen's membership entry at the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , accessed on February 2, 2016.
  3. ↑ Jens Minor: SPL Sørensen: Interactive Google Doodle in honor of the Danish biochemist & the pH value scale . In: GoogleWatchBlog . May 29, 2018 ( googlewatchblog.de [accessed May 29, 2018]).
personal data
SURNAME Sørensen, Søren
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sørensen, Søren Peter Lauritz (full name); Sørensen, SPL
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish biochemist
DATE OF BIRTH January 9, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Havrebjerg , Denmark
DATE OF DEATH February 13, 1939
Place of death Copenhagen