Wilhelm Moschel

Wilhelm Moschel (born September 17, 1896 in Hochspeyer ; † November 3, 1954 in Wuppertal -Barmen) was a German chemist, known for his contributions to the production of magnesium.

Moschel was the son of a businessman and went to school in Ludwigshafen. From 1914 he studied chemistry in Heidelberg, interrupted by military service in the First World War as an officer. In 1921 he completed his studies in Heidelberg with a doctorate and went into industry, first at the Griesheim-Elektron company. In Gustav Pistor's working group at IG Farben in Bitterfeld , where he was from 1925, he improved the fused-melt electrolysis for the production of magnesium . Instead of carnallite as the starting material, as was customary until then , he found a process to produce anhydrous magnesium chloride from magnesite . Systems for this were built in Bitterfeld in 1928. He also improved the electrolysis process in order to obtain magnesium from this raw material. From 1933, his process was also used under license in France and Great Britain, and during World War II a large factory was built in Nevada that used this process.

From 1929 on, in addition to magnesium production, Moschel also headed the chlorates division in Bitterfeld and in 1936 became director of inorganic production in Bitterfeld and for the entire magnesium production of IG Farben. For these he also builds aluminum and magnesium production facilities in occupied Norway during World War II. In 1943 he went back to Bitterfeld as head of the research laboratory. After the Second World War, in 1948 he took over the management of Bayer's inorganic research laboratory in Leverkusen.

In 1953 he received the Liebig commemorative coin .

Web links

• Claus Priesner, NDB