Walter Kaminsky (chemist)

Walter Kaminsky (born May 7, 1941 in Hamburg ) is a German chemist .

life and work

Kaminsky was born in Hamburg in 1941 . He studied from 1962 Chemistry at the University of Hamburg , where he in 1971 with a thesis on the reaction between bis (cyclopentadienyl) -zirkon dichloride and triethylaluminum doctorate was. This was followed by research in the field of pyrolysis of plastic waste and used tires , which was also the subject of his habilitation.

In 1979 he accepted a position at the University of Hamburg, where he took over the Institute for Technical and Macromolecular Chemistry . In 2006 he was retired there.

A research focus was the development of homogeneous catalyst systems based on metallocenes of the titanium group with methylaluminoxane as co-catalyst. In 1977 Kaminsky and Hansjörg Sinn discovered that methylaluminoxane in combination with titanocene dichloride resulted in highly active catalysts for olefin polymerization. In 1982 Hans-Herbert Brintzinger (University of Konstanz) published the representation of chiral ansa-metallocenes. As a result of the collaboration between Kaminsky and Brintzinger, catalysts were subsequently developed which enable the stereoselective polymerization of propene and higher α- olefins .

The research work in the field of olefin polymerization provided not only highly reactive and easily accessible catalysts but also insights into the reaction mechanisms taking place . By modifying the symmetrical properties of the metallocenes, Kaminsky succeeded in producing isotactic , syndiotactic or atactic polypropylene in a targeted manner.

A second focus was the development of technical pyrolysis systems, the so-called Hamburg process for the recovery of raw materials for the chemical industry from plastic waste and biomass.

Awards and memberships

Walter Kaminsky has received numerous prizes and awards, including the Körber Foundation's European Science Prize , the Alwin Mittasch Medal for metallocene catalysts (together with Hans-Herbert Brintzinger and Hansjörg Sinn ), the Benjamin Franklin Medal and the Hermann Staudinger Prize 2003 He is an honorary member of the Royal Chemical Society and an honorary professor at Zhejiang University in China.

He is a member of DECHEMA , the Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors , the Association of German Engineers and the American Chemical Society . Since 2005 he has also been a full member of the Academy of Sciences in Hamburg .

His list of publications includes more than 400 articles and books. Kaminsky holds 30 patents.

Literature (selection)

• Disposal of oily hazardous waste using the Hamburg pyrolysis process . Erich Schmidt publishing house, Berlin 1990, ISBN 978-3-503-02897-9 .
• Feedstock recycling and pyrolysis of waste plastics . Wiley, Chichester 2006, ISBN 0-470-02152-7 (together with John Scheirs ).
• Metal organic catalysts for synthesis and polymerization. Recent results by Ziegler-Natta and metallocene investigations . Springer, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-540-65813-0 .
• Olefin Polymerization. Selected Contributions from the Conference in Hamburg (Germany), October 10-12 2005 (Macromolecular Symposia) . Wiley-VCH, Weinheim 2006, ISBN 978-3-527-31742-4 .
• "Living Polymers" in Ziegler Catalysts of Extreme Productivity H. Sinn, W. Kaminsky, HJ Vollmer, R. Woldt, Angew. Chem., 1980, 92, 396.

Web links

• Literature by and about Walter Kaminsky in the catalog of the German National Library
• Walter Kaminsky biography on the website of the University of Hamburg