Manfred Baerns (23 July 1934 – 2 February 2021) was a German chemist.
Career
After a 2-years postdoctoral fellowship at the
Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne National Laboratory is a science and engineering research United States Department of Energy National Labs, national laboratory operated by University of Chicago, UChicago Argonne LLC for the United States Department of Energy. The facil ...
(Argonne, Illinois), a further 5 years in academia and a 5-year career in industry, was a full professor for chemical technology and reaction engineering at
Ruhr-University Bochum
The Ruhr University Bochum (, ) is a public research university located in the southern hills of the central Ruhr area, Bochum, Germany. It was founded in 1962 as the first new public university in Germany after World War II. Instruction began in ...
(Germany) from 1974–1995. He then acted as scientific director of the "Institute of Applied Chemistry Berlin-Adlershof" until 2003. He was lately a guest scientist as
Professor Emeritus
''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...
at the "Fritz-Haber-Institute" of the Max-Planck-Society at Berlin.
Baerns was a member of numerous scientific committees and a referee for research proposal at a national level. From 1991 to 1997 he was member of the board DECHEMA (a scientific association of chemical technology,
chemical engineering
Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials int ...
and biotechnology), and a permanent member of the German
Chemical Society
The Chemical Society was a scientific society formed in 1841 (then named the Chemical Society of London) by 77 scientists as a result of increased interest in scientific matters. Chemist Robert Warington was the driving force behind its creation.
...
, the German Bunsen Society for
Physical Chemistry
Physical chemistry is the study of macroscopic and microscopic phenomena in chemical systems in terms of the principles, practices, and concepts of physics such as motion, energy, force, time, thermodynamics, quantum chemistry, statistical mecha ...
, German Society for Coal, Oil and Gas, and finally the
American Chemical Society
The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all d ...
.
He received the DECHEMA titanium medal, the award of the
4th World
The Fourth World is an extension of the three-world model, used variably to refer to
# Sub-populations socially excluded from global society, such as uncontacted peoples;
# Hunter-gatherer, nomadic, pastoral, and some subsistence farming peopl ...
Congress on Oxidation Catalysis, for which he acted as president, honorary professorships of the Humboldt University and the
Technical University
An institute of technology (also referred to as: technological university, technical university, university of technology, technological educational institute, technical college, polytechnic university or just polytechnic) is an institution of te ...
, both at Berlin, honorary membership of the Leibniz-Institute for Catalysis at Rostock (Germany).
Baerns was an author of about 300 scientific publications and three books on
chemical reaction
A chemical reaction is a process that leads to the IUPAC nomenclature for organic transformations, chemical transformation of one set of chemical substances to another. Classically, chemical reactions encompass changes that only involve the pos ...
engineering and catalysis. His research focused on
heterogeneous catalysis
In chemistry, heterogeneous catalysis is catalysis where the phase of catalysts differs from that of the reactants or products. The process contrasts with homogeneous catalysis where the reactants, products and catalyst exist in the same phase. Ph ...
(oil and gas for chemicals) and chemical reaction engineering.
He died in February 2021 at the age of 86.
Manfred Baerns
Books
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Manfred Baerns, Martin Holena, Combinatorial development of solid catalytic materials - Design of high throughput experiments, data analysis, data mining, 2009, Imperial College Press, London, 178 pages
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baerns, Manfred
1934 births
2021 deaths
German physical chemists