Walter Hafner (chemist)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Walter Hafner (born December 8, 1927 in Lauterbach ; † January 5, 2004 in Eurasburg ) was a German chemist who was a pioneer in organometallic chemistry .

life and work

Structural formula of bis (benzene) chromium

Hafner studied chemistry in Munich. In 1955 he synthesized with Ernst Otto Fischer the dibenzenechromium , example of a sandwich complex (such as the 1951 synthesized ferrocene ) and first locked metal compound of benzene (see also aromatics-metal complexes ). Among other things, Fischer received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Geoffrey Wilkinson for elucidating the sandwich structure in organometallic compounds . Hafner received his doctorate in 1956 under Ernst Otto Fischer in Munich ( aromatic complexes of chromium and vanadium ).

Balance reaction of the Wacker-Hoechst procedure

After completing his doctorate, he went to the Consortium for Electrochemical Industry in Munich, a research center at Wacker Chemie . In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Hafner and Jürgen Smidt at Wacker-Chemie developed an industrial process for the partial oxidation of ethene to acetaldehyde using palladium chloride as a catalyst, the Wacker-Hoechst process , with recovery of the catalyst. The Wacker process has been licensed to chemical companies around the world. In 1992 he retired from Wacker-Chemie.

honors and awards

In 1982 he and Jürgen Smidt received the Karl Ziegler Prize and in 1962 they received the DECHEMA Prize (also for the Wacker process).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ EO Fischer, W. Hafner: Di-benzol-chrom. About aromatic complexes of metals. In: Journal of Nature Research B . 10, 1955, pp. 665–668 ( PDF , free full text).
  2. ↑ Ernst Otto Fischer on his 70th birthday, TU München Mitteilungen 1/1988/89, p. 27, pdf .
  3. ^ Helmut Werner: Landmarks in Organo-Transition Metal Chemistry: A Personal View. Springer Verlag 2009, p. 137.
personal data
SURNAME Hafner, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist
DATE OF BIRTH December 8, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Lauterbach
DATE OF DEATH January 5, 2004
Place of death Eurasburg