Willy Marckwald

Willy Marckwald during his early habilitation in 1889

Willy Marckwald in 1899 for the first time in the II. Chemical Institute

Willy Marckwald (born December 5, 1864 in Jakobskirch , Lower Silesia (Polish: Jakubów), † 1942 in Rolândia , Brazil) was a German chemist.

Life's work

Marckwald studied at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin (today Humboldt-Universität) and received his doctorate there at the I. Chemical Institute in 1886 under AW Hofmann with an organic-preparative thesis on a "contribution to the knowledge of thialdehydes and thialdins" .

As a result of research in the field of furan compounds , he completed his habilitation after a very short time in 1889 with Hofmann at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin . In 1899 he was appointed head of department at the Second Chemical Institute. He held this private lecturer position until his age-related retirement in 1930. Because he was married to a Jewish woman, he emigrated to Brazil in 1936, where he died in 1942.

Scientific life's work

Based on the field of work of his dissertation and habilitation, he developed an extremely broad interest in all areas of chemistry. While investigating heterocycle chemistry, he developed a synthesis method for aziridines from β-haloamines. This ring closure method, known as the Gabriel-Marckwald reaction, makes it possible to produce three- to seven-membered cyclic amines . As far as possible, he sold process patent usage rights to industry. He also wrote monographs of general interest.

In 1892 his doctoral supervisor AW Hofmann died unexpectedly and suddenly. Since Marckwald at the 1st Chemical Institute did not fit into the environment of the renowned successor Emil Fischer and his new institute building, Marckwald had to move to the 2nd Chemical Institute in 1899. During this time, the field of optically active compounds was dominated by Fischer and Pasteur .

Here Marckwald developed various strategies for the separation of enantiomers of racemic mixtures and enantioselective syntheses for the first time .

Asymmetric Catalysis

• Optically active menthol forms diastereomeric menthol esters with both enantiomers of a mandelic acid racemate at different rates (1899, kinetic separation).
• Methods for the separation of enantiomers by crystallization of derivatives (1900, derivatizations)
• In the presence of a chiral catalyst ( brucine ) the achiral ethylmethylmalonic acid decarboxylates to an optically active mixture of 2-methylvaleric acids (1904, asymmetrical catalysis). In doing so, he showed that the asymmetric induction that Emil Fischer had discovered in brucine resulted in chiral products solely through the chirality of the brucine as a catalyst.

At this institute, which was influenced by Landolt, Marckwald turned increasingly to the physical, theoretical, but also the inorganic chemistry of radioactive compounds from 1900. He participated in Landolt's sections in "Graham-Otto's detailed textbook on chemistry". In 1902 he succeeded in isolating polonium in large quantities for the first time ; the existence of polonium had previously been postulated by Curie . In 1904 he wrote a general monograph on radioactivity. In 1906, Marckwald was the first to describe the mineral rutherfordin , which was discovered in what was then German East Africa , now Tanzania .

In 1905 Landolt emeritus and Nernst succeeded him in the II. Chemical Institute, which was henceforth called the "Physico-chemical Institute". From 1906 Emil Fischer employed the organic chemist Otto Hahn in his I. Chemical Institute , who completed his habilitation there in 1907 and from 1912 ran his own radiochemical department in the newly created Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin-Dahlem . Until his retirement, Marckwald only dealt with general topics of analytical, inorganic and, above all, physical chemistry.

Honors

DChG award 1916

In 1906 his teaching activities also extended to the Royal Agricultural University in Berlin . In 1910 he was appointed a secret councilor. In 1916 he received a special honor from the German Chemical Society for his research results . In 1919 he was appointed honorary professor for inorganic chemistry (at the Royal Technical University of Charlottenburg ); From 1928 to 1931 he took over the board of the German Chemical Society in Berlin.

Life

Willy Marckwald had two brothers and a sister, his brother Leo (* 1866; † 1928 in Berlin) also became a chemist and received his doctorate in Berlin in 1888 with a thesis on "Phenylhydrazine and its derivatives" . Hans Marckwald (* 1874 in Berlin, † 1933 in Frankfurt am Main) was politically active for the SAPD . His sister was named Toni (* 1863 in Jakobskirch; † 1918 in Stockholm).

In 1890 he married Margarete Salomon (* 1871; † 1908 in Berlin), who came from an assimilated Jewish family, and had two sons with her. His eldest son Friedrich (born February 29, 1892, † December 2, 1917) fell as a naval aviator in 1917 during World War I. In 1936 he emigrated with his son Joachim (* June 7, 1902; † August 26, 1986) and daughter-in-law Prisca to Brazil in the German emigration settlement Rolândia in the state of Paraná .

literature

• Marckwald, Willy , in: Joseph Walk (ed.): Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918–1945 . Munich: Saur, 1988, ISBN 3-598-10477-4 , p. 254
• Marckwald, Willy , in: Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945 . Volume 2.2. Munich: Saur, 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , p. 777

Web links

• Archive data from the Humboldt University
• Willy Marckwald in the atmosphere of Emil Fischer ( Memento from December 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
• Contemporary documents from the Weimar Republic, letter of thanks from the Rector December 1934
• The 14th Annual General Meeting of the Bunsen Society. In: Polytechnisches Journal . 322, 1907, Miszelle 1, p. 364.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ At that time, the Chemical Institute was part of the "Philosophical Faculty of the Royal Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin", the title "Dr. phil." awarded.
2. ^ History I. Chem. Institute Board member until 1892 AW Hofmann , 1892–1919 Emil Fischer , from 1921 Wilhelm Schlenk . - until 1900 Georgenstrasse 34–36, from 14 July 1900 move into the new building at Hessische Strasse 1/2
3. ↑ Inaugural dissertation "Contribution to the knowledge of thialdehydes and thialdins", results published as Ueber decomposition products of thialdine rhodanic acid , Ber. dt. Chem. Ges. 19 , 1826 (1886) and Ueber das Methylthialdin , Ber. dt. Chem. Ges. 19 , 2378 (1886).
4. ^ Marckwald - overview of publications 1888-1896
5. ↑ History of the II. Chem. Institute : Board member until 1891 Carl Rammelsberg , 1891–1904 Hans Heinrich Landolt , 1905–1923 Walter Nernst , from 1923 Max Bodenstein . - Bunsenstrasse 1, from 1905 renamed "Physikalisch-Chemisches Institut".
6. ↑ S. Gabriel: About vinylamine . In: Ber. German chem. Ges. 21 , 1049 (1888)
7. ↑ CC Howard, W. Marckwald: On the constitution of vinyl amine . In: Ber. German chem. Ges. 32 , 2036 (1899)
8. ↑ W. Marckwald: Ueber das Dimethylenimin . In: Ber. German chem. Ges. 33 , 764 (1900)
9. ↑ W. Marckwald, O. Frobenius: About compounds from the Aethyleneimine series. In: Ber. German chem. Ges. 34 , 3544 (1901). doi : 10.1002 / cber.19010340346
10. ↑ US Patent No. 500665: Process for the production of piperazine , filed May 26, 1892, rights of use chemical factory on shares (Schering)
11. ↑ "About the relationships between the boiling point and the composition of chemical compounds which have been recognized so far" Tables, 1888 (only readable with US proxy).
12. ↑ Emil Fischer - From my life, Berlin time
13. ↑ W. Marckwald, Alex. Mc. Kenzie: About a principally new method for splitting racemic compounds into their constituent parts . In: Ber. German chem. Ges. 32 , 2130 (1899).
14. ↑ W. Marckwald: About the separation of the amyl alcohols in fusel oil . In: Ber. German chem. Ges. 34 , 479 (1901).
15. ^ W. Marckwald: About asymmetric synthesis . In: Ber. German chem. Ges. 37 , 349 (1904).
16. ↑ "The Benzolt Theory" , 1898 (readable with US proxy).
17. ^ The 14th General Meeting of the Bunsen Society. In: Polytechnisches Journal . 322, 1907, Miszelle 1, p. 364 .: "3 mg polonium salt from 5,000 kg uranium ore".
18. ^ Sieghard Neufeldt: Chronology of chemistry . John Wiley & Sons, 2012, ISBN 3-527-66284-7 , pp. 115 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
19. ↑ "About Bequerel Rays and Radioactive Substances" . Modern Medical Library, Volume 7 (1904)
20. ↑ "W. Marckwald, Ueber uranium ores from German East Africa, Zentralbl. Min., Geol. Paläont., 1906, 761-63. "
21. ↑ Max Lenz, History of the Royal Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin, Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses, Halle, 1910, 4 volumes: The physical-chemical institute ( Memento of the original from February 28, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was used automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : Nernst as Landolt's successor in 1905. 
22. ↑ Technical University of Berlin: Collection of Inorganic Preparations - Inorganic Laboratory . - Board member Karl Andreas Hofmann dealt with radioactive substances.
23. ↑ Doctorate presumably with Ferdinand Tiemann (research area phenylhydrazine), the brother-in-law of his doctoral supervisor AW von Hofmann. - Patent DE 142939 of July 26, 1901. - DE 137814 and DE 137847 of March 28, 1901.