Eduard Farber, also ''Eduard Färber'' or ''Eduard Faerber'', (17 April 1892, in

Brody Brody ( uk, Броди; russian: Броды, Brodï; pl, Brody; german: Brody; yi, בראָד, Brod) is a city in Zolochiv Raion of Lviv Oblast (province) of western Ukraine. It is located in the valley of the upper Styr River, approximately ...

Galicia Galicia may refer to: Geographic regions * Galicia (Spain), a region and autonomous community of northwestern Spain ** Gallaecia, a Roman province ** The post-Roman Kingdom of the Suebi, also called the Kingdom of Gallaecia ** The medieval King ...

– 15 July 1969) was an Austrian-American industrial chemist and historian of chemistry.

Biography

Färber (spelling changed in 1938) grew up in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

as the son of a businessman and studied natural sciences (chemistry, physics, and mineralogy) in Leipzig with doctorate in 1916. He then became an assistant to

Carl Neuberg Carl Alexander Neuberg (29 July 1877 – 30 May 1956) was an early pioneer in biochemistry, and he is often referred to as the "father of modern biochemistry". His notable contribution to science includes the discovery of the carboxylase and the ...

at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Experimentelle Therapie in Berlin. Due to an eye ailment he was not drafted in World War I, but worked at a laboratory in 1917/18 in Budapest in the conversion of a fermentation factory into a factory for

glycerol Glycerol (), also called glycerine in British English and glycerin in American English, is a simple triol compound. It is a colorless, odorless, viscous liquid that is sweet-tasting and non-toxic. The glycerol backbone is found in lipids know ...

production used in the ammunition industry. After the war he became chief chemist and chemical research director of Deutsche Bergin A.G. and Holzhydrolyse A.G. at Mannheim-Rheinau and

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

. In National Socialist Germany, he anticipated an unfavorable future and in 1938 immigrated with his family to the United States, where he again worked in the chemical industry and as a consultant. In 1943 he became head of chemical research at Timber Engineering Corp. in Washington, D.C. In 1957 he retired, but remained active as a consultant. He held 85 US patents and published about 50 papers as an industrial chemist. But he is known for his work on the history of chemistr