Max Julius Louis Le Blanc (1865 – 1943) was a German physical chemist who worked in the field of electrochemistry, writing an influential textbook in 1895 on the subject which went through several editions. He was a professor at the Technical University of

Karlsruhe Karlsruhe ( ; ; ; South Franconian German, South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, third-largest city of the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, after its capital Stuttgart a ...

, later at the Wilhelm Ostwald Institute at

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 ...

. He is best known for inventing the hydrogen electrode used for pH measurements. In 1933 he was a signatory to 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 ...

Life and work

Le Blanc was born on 26 May 1865 in Barten,

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. It played a signif ...

to builder Louis and his wife Marie Kickton and after studying at the Gymnasium in Rastenburg, he went to the universities at Tübingen and Berlin. His doctoral work of 1888 was on organic chemistry under

August Wilhelm von Hofmann August Wilhelm von Hofmann (8 April 18185 May 1892) was a German chemist who made considerable contributions to organic chemistry. His research on aniline helped lay the basis of the aniline-dye industry, and his research on coal tar laid the g ...

. He however moved to physical chemistry and worked under

Wilhelm Ostwald Wilhelm Friedrich Ostwald (; – 4 April 1932) was a Latvian chemist and philosopher. Ostwald is credited with being one of the founders of the field of physical chemistry, with Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, Walther Nernst and Svante Arrhenius. ...

at Leipzig from 1891. He worked in electrochemistry at

Hoechst AG Hoechst AG () was a German chemicals, later life sciences, company that became Aventis Deutschland after its merger with France's Rhône-Poulenc S.A. in 1999. With the new company's 2004 merger with Sanofi-Synthélabo, it became a subsidiar ...

from 1896 to 1901 and subsequently taught physical chemistry at the technical institute, Karlsruhe. He returned to Leipzig succeeding Wilhelm Ostwald in 1906. Le Blanc's work was chiefly on electrolytes and an understanding of voltages and decomposition potentials. He also discovered that a layer of hydrogen around a platinum electrode makes it effectively a hydrogen electrode. In 1893 he showed that hydrogen bubbled around a platinum electrode made it usable as a hydrogen electrode. This made rapid and standardized pH measurements possible. His work in industry included methods for regenerating

chromic acid Chromic acid is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is also a jargon for a solution formed by the addition of sulfuric acid to aqueous solutions of dichromate. It consists at least in part of chromium trioxide. The term "chromic ...

in dye and rubber manufacture during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. Le Blanc died 31 July 1945.

References

External links

* The elements of electro-chemistry (1896) * A Text-book of Electro-chemistry (1907, English translation)
The production of chromium and its compounds by the aid of the electric current
(1904) {{DEFAULTSORT:Le Blanc, Max 1865 births 1943 deaths German chemists University of Tübingen alumni Recipients of the Cothenius Medal