Walter Hückel

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Walter Hückel (born February 18, 1895 in Charlottenburg , † January 4, 1973 in Tübingen ) was a German chemist . From 1948 until his retirement in 1963 he was director of the Pharmaceutical-Chemical Institute in Tübingen. Walter Hückel became known among other things through his textbooks.

Life

Walter Hückel was born in 1895 as the eldest son of doctor Armand Hückel (1865–1929), his siblings were Erich Hückel (1896–1980; chemist and physicist) and Rudi Hückel (1899–1949; doctor). One of his great-grandfathers was the botanist Carl Friedrich von Gärtner (1772-1850), one of his great-great-grandfathers Joseph Gärtner (1732-1791), a botanist in Saint Petersburg .

From 1901 Hückel attended a private pre-school, from 1904 the humanistic grammar school in Göttingen , where he passed his Abitur in 1913 . He then studied chemistry at the University of Göttingen . During the First World War he was active in the military from 1915 to 1918.

In 1920 he was with the thesis "Hydro-aromatic 1,2-dicarboxylic acids and their behavior during distillation with acetic anhydride" to Dr. phil. PhD . He then worked for seven years as an assistant at the Chemical Institute of the University of Göttingen, where he dealt with stereochemistry . During this time he completed his habilitation in chemistry in 1923. Thereupon Hückel worked from 1927 to 1930 as a professor for organic chemistry at the University of Freiburg . From 1930 to 1945 he was Professor and Director of the Chemical Institute at the University of Greifswald for five years and then ten years in the same capacity at the University of Breslau . Then he was a scientific advisor at the Sartorius company in Göttingen until 1947 .

In 1947 he was visiting professor of chemistry at the University of Tübingen for a year . He then worked as a professor of pharmaceutical chemistry until 1963 and was director of the Pharmaceutical-Chemical Institute at the University of Tübingen. From 1955 to 1956 he was dean of the natural science and mathematics faculty. In 1939 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . In 1940 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina , since 1958 he was a full member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and in 1966 he was awarded the newly donated Otto Wallach plaque from the Society of German Chemists .

In his experimental research, Hückel mainly dealt with the stereochemistry and the mechanisms of organic reactions. In doing so, he dealt particularly intensively with the connections between reactivity and the spatial structure of molecules. He also researched the hydrogenation of unsaturated hydrocarbons with alkali metals in liquid ammonia . This reaction is known today as the “Birch-Hückel reduction”.

Hückel was married and had four children.

Honors

  • 1934: Grignard Medal from the Société Chimique de France
  • 1946: Berzelius Medal, Sweden
  • 1957: Medal of the Royal Academy of Knowledge, Amsterdam
  • 1960: Honorary doctorate from the University of Rennes
  • 1962: Stass Medal de Société Chimique de Belgique
  • 1965: Honorary doctorate from the University of Dijon
  • 1965: Honorary doctorate from the University of Kiel
  • 1966: Otto Wallach plaque from the Society of German Chemists

Publications (selection)

  • Pharmaceutical chemistry and drug synthesis , Enke, Stuttgart 1953/54
  • Theoretical foundations of organic chemistry , Verlag Chemie, 1953
  • The development of the hypothesis of the non-classical ion: a historical-critical study , Heidelberg: Springer 1968 (series: Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften. Mathematical-Natural Science Class: reports from the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, Mathematical-Natural Science Class; born 1967/68, Abh . 5).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 119.
  2. ↑ a b Armin Hermann, Armin Wankmüller: Physics, physiological chemistry and pharmacy at the University of Tübingen , Franz Steiner Verlag 1980, page 157
personal data
SURNAME Hückel, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH February 18, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Charlottenburg
DATE OF DEATH 4th January 1973
Place of death Tübingen