Willy Marckwald (1864, Jakobskirch,

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 ...

– 1942,

Rolândia Rolândia is a municipality in the state of Paraná in the Southern Region of Brazil. Rolândia was settled by German immigrants who named it after (and erected a statue to) the medieval hero Roland, a symbol of freedom in Germany. People * E ...

, Brazil) was a German chemist.

Biography

Marckwald studied at Berlin's Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität and received there from the First Chemical Institute in 1886 his Promotierung under A. W. Hofmann with a dissertation on organic chemistry entitled ''Beitrag zur Kenntniss der Thialdehyde und Thialdine''. By his research on

furan Furan is a Heterocyclic compound, heterocyclic organic compound, consisting of a five-membered aromatic Ring (chemistry), ring with four carbon Atom, atoms and one oxygen atom. Chemical compounds containing such rings are also referred to as f ...

s, Marckwald received his

Habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

in a very short time in 1889 under the supervision of A. W. Hofmann at Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin. In 1899 Marckwald became one of the department heads at the Second Chemical Institute. He held this Privatdozent-level position until his age-related retirement in 1930. From 1928 to 1931 he was the board chair of the German Chemical Society. In 1890 Marckwald married Margarete Salomon (1871–1908). Their marriage produced two sons, Friedrich (1892–1917), who died in World War I as a naval aviator, and Johann (1902–1986). In 1936 Willy Marckwald, with his son Johann and his daughter-in-law Prisca, became immigrants in Brazil.

Scientific work

From the starting point of his Promotierung dissertation and Habilitation, Marckwald developed a wide interest in all the fields of chemistry of his era. In

heterocyclic chemistry A heterocyclic compound or ring structure is a cyclic compound that has atoms of at least two different elements as members of its ring(s). Heterocyclic organic chemistry is the branch of organic chemistry dealing with the synthesis, proper ...

, building upon the research done on

Gabriel synthesis The Gabriel synthesis is a chemical reaction that transforms primary alkyl halides into primary amines. Traditionally, the reaction uses potassium phthalimide. The reaction is named after the German chemist Siegmund Gabriel. The Gabriel reacti ...

, he developed a method for synthesis of

aziridine Aziridine is an organic compound consisting of the three-membered heterocycle . It is a colorless, toxic, volatile liquid that is of significant practical interest. Aziridine was discovered in 1888 by the chemist Siegmund Gabriel. Its deriva ...

s from β-halogen-amines. This ring closure method, known as the Gabriel-Marckwald reaction, allows the preparation of

heterocyclic amines Heterocyclic amines, also sometimes referred to as HCAs, are chemical compounds containing at least one heterocyclic ring, which by definition has atoms of at least two different elements, as well as at least one amine (nitrogen-containing) group. ...

that are ''n''-membered, where n=3,4,5,6, or 7. In so far as possible, Marckwald sold the patent rights for use in industry. On this topic, he also wrote monographs of general interest. At the Second Chemical Institute, Marckwald did pioneering research on kinetic resolution and stereoselective synthesis. Marckwald assym Katayse

Three of his outstanding achievements were: * 1899, Kinetic resolution by synthetic means; * 1900, Methods for enantiomer separation by crystallization of derivatives; * 1904, Enantioselective chemical synthesis (''Asymmetrische Katalyse''). At the Second Chemical Institute under Landolt's direction, Marckwald beginning in 1900 turned increasingly toward theory but also to the inorganic chemistry of radioactive compounds. He collaborated on Landolt's sections in the textbook ''Graham-Otto's ausführlichem Lehrbuch der Chemie''. From 5 metric tons of uranium ore, in 1902 Marckwald succeeded in isolating 3 milligrams of

polonium Polonium is a chemical element; it has symbol Po and atomic number 84. A rare and highly radioactive metal (although sometimes classified as a metalloid) with no stable isotopes, polonium is a chalcogen and chemically similar to selenium and tel ...

, which he provisionally (''vorläufig'') named radio-tellurium. In 1904 he published a monograph on radioactivity. In 1911 Marckwald and Alexander Smith Russell published evidence suggesting that the radioactive thorium isotope ²³⁰Th and

ionium Thorium (90Th) has seven naturally occurring isotopes but none are stable. One isotope, 232Th, is ''relatively'' stable, with a half-life of 1.405×1010 years, considerably longer than the age of the Earth, and even slightly longer than the gen ...

are identical.

Honors and awards

* 1916 — special honor from the German Chemical Society * 1919 — appointment as honorary professor of inorganic chemistry at the Königlichen Technischen Hochschule CharlottenburgTechnische Universität Berlin
Sammlung anorganischer Präparate - Anorganisches Laboratorium
- Vorstand

Karl Andreas Hofmann Karl Andreas Hofmann (2 April 1870 – 15 October 1940) was a German inorganic chemist. He is best known for his discovery of a family of clathrates which consist of a 2-D metal cyanide sheet, with every second metal also bound axially to two o ...

befasste sich mit radioaktiven Stoffen.

References

External links

Archivdaten der Humboldt-Universität
*
zeitgenössische Unterlagen aus Zeit der Weimarer Republik, Dankesschreiben des Rektors Dezember 1934
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marckwald, Willy 1864 births 1942 deaths 19th-century German chemists German biochemists People from Polkowice County 20th-century German chemists German emigrants to Brazil