Franz Hein (30 June 1892 – 26 February 1976) was a German chemist and professor. He specialized in the chemistry of organic chromium and other metal compounds. He was the son of the artist Franz Johann Erich Hein (1863–1927).

History

Franz Hein was born in Grötzingen (Baden), Germany. His high school years were spent in

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

, where his father Franz Johann Erich Hein (1863–1927) was an artist and teacher. He then went to the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December 1409 by Frederick I, Electo ...

in 1912. Hein completed his Ph.D. in 1917 under Arthur Hantzsch (1857-1935) on optical studies of

bismuth Bismuth is a chemical element; it has symbol Bi and atomic number 83. It is a post-transition metal and one of the pnictogens, with chemical properties resembling its lighter group 15 siblings arsenic and antimony. Elemental bismuth occurs nat ...

and

triphenylmethane Triphenylmethane or triphenyl methane (sometimes also known as Tritan), is the hydrocarbon with the formula (C6H5)3CH. This colorless solid is soluble in nonpolar organic solvents and not in water. Triphenylmethane is the basic skeleton of many syn ...

derivatives. Hein made ''Assistant'' at the university and in 1920 ''Oberassistent''. He continued working on his ''Habilitation'' becoming a professor in 1923. With the completion of his ''Habilitation'', Hein went to work on organometallic system electrochemistry. In 1933, Hein signed the ''

Vow of allegiance of the Professors of the German Universities and High-Schools to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialistic State officially translated into English as the Vow of allegiance of the Professors of the German Universities and High-Schools to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialistic State was a document presented on 11 November 1933 at the Albert Hall in Leipzi ...

''. From 1941 to 1965, Hein worked on main-group-metal derivatives of metal carbonyls. After 1942, he moved from Leipzig to the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena where he became the director of the Institute for Inorganic Chemistry. War came in March 1945 and the university was destroyed. Hein came back to help rebuild towards the end of 1946. He declined an offer at the University of Leipzig in 1949. Until his retirement, he held a position as a chair in inorganic chemistry until 1959.

Phenylchromium compounds

With the reaction of anhydrous

chromium(III) chloride Chromium(III) chloride (also called chromic chloride) is an inorganic chemical compound with the chemical formula . This crystalline salt forms several hydrates with the formula , among which are hydrates where ''n'' can be 5 (chromium(III) chlo ...

(CrCl₃) and

phenylmagnesium bromide Phenylmagnesium bromide, with the simplified formula , is a magnesium-containing organometallic compound. It forms colorless crystals. It is commercially available as a solution in diethyl ether or tetrahydrofuran (THF). Phenylmagnesium bromide i ...

(C₆H₅MgBr), Hein created a mixture of compounds. He was able to produce what he called phenylmagnesium salts. Hein denoted them as: (C₆H₅)₅CrX, (C₆H₅)₄CrX, and (C₆H₅)₃CrX. However, it was later found that the correct structures were of

sandwich compound In organometallic chemistry, a sandwich compound is a chemical compound featuring a metal bound by hapticity, haptic, covalent bonds to two arene compound, arene (ring) ligands. The arenes have the formula , substituted derivatives (for example ...

type complexes and based on biphenyl not phenyl. The discovery of

ferrocene Ferrocene is an organometallic chemistry, organometallic compound with the formula . The molecule is a Cyclopentadienyl complex, complex consisting of two Cyclopentadienyl anion, cyclopentadienyl rings sandwiching a central iron atom. It is an o ...

and the research done by Zeiss, Tsutsui, and others lead to this structure determination.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hein, Franz 20th-century German chemists Scientists from Karlsruhe 1892 births 1976 deaths Members of the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin

History

Phenylchromium compounds

See also

References