Walter Hieber (18 December 1895 – 29 November 1976) was an

inorganic chemist An inorganic compound is typically a chemical compound that lacks carbon–hydrogen bonds⁠that is, a compound that is not an organic compound. The study of inorganic compounds is a subfield of chemistry known as ''inorganic chemistry''. Inorgan ...

, known as the father of

metal carbonyl A metal () is a material that, when polished or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. These properties are all associated with having electrons available at the Fermi level, as against n ...

chemistry. He was born 18 December 1895 and died 29 November 1976. Hieber's father was Johannes Hieber, an influential evangelical minister and politician. Hieber was educated at

Tübingen Tübingen (; ) is a traditional college town, university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer (Neckar), Ammer rivers. about one in ...

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is, after Nuremberg and Fürth, the Franconia#Towns and cities, third-largest city in Franconia located in the north of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. It sp ...

, and

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...

. In 1935 he was appointed Director of the Inorganic Chemical Institute at the Technical University in Münich. Among his numerous research findings, Hieber prepared the first metal carbonyl

hydride In chemistry, a hydride is formally the anion of hydrogen (H−), a hydrogen ion with two electrons. In modern usage, this is typically only used for ionic bonds, but it is sometimes (and has been more frequently in the past) applied to all che ...

s such as H₂Fe(CO)₄ and HMn(CO)₅. He discovered that metal carbonyls undergo

nucleophilic In chemistry, a nucleophile is a chemical species that forms bonds by donating an electron pair. All molecules and ions with a free pair of electrons or at least one pi bond can act as nucleophiles. Because nucleophiles donate electrons, they a ...

attack by

hydroxide Hydroxide is a diatomic anion with chemical formula OH−. It consists of an oxygen and hydrogen atom held together by a single covalent bond, and carries a negative electric charge. It is an important but usually minor constituent of water. It ...

, the “Hieber base reaction.” He and his students discovered several metal carbonyl compounds such as Re₂(CO)₁₀ and Os₃(CO)₁₂ He pioneered the development of metal carbonyl sulfides.Hieber, W. and Scharfenberg, C., "Einwirkung organischer Schwefelverbindungen auf die Carbonyls des Eisens", Chemische Berichte, 1940, volume 73, pages 1012-1021. Hieber is also known for his work with the

cis effect In inorganic chemistry, the cis effect is defined as the labilization (or destabilization) of CO ligands that are ''cis'' to other ligands. CO is a well-known strong pi-accepting ligand in organometallic chemistry that will labilize in the ''cis ...

, also known as the labilization of CO ligands in the cis position in octahedral complexes. Hieber was highly decorated for his work, including in 1951 the

Alfred Stock Alfred Stock (July 16, 1876 – August 12, 1946) was a German inorganic chemist. He did pioneering research on the hydrides of boron and silicon, coordination chemistry, mercury, and mercury poisoning. The German Chemical Society's Alfred-Stoc ...

Prize. One of his most famous students was Nobel prize winner

Ernst Otto Fischer Ernst Otto Fischer (; 10 November 1918 – 23 July 2007) was a German chemist who won the Nobel Prize for pioneering work in the area of organometallic chemistry. Early life He was born in Solln, a borough of Munich. His parents were Karl T. Fi ...

. His first foreign student was John Anderson, FRS, in 1931.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hieber, Walter 1895 births 1976 deaths Academic staff of the Technical University of Munich Academic staff of the University of Greifswald 20th-century German chemists