Wilhelm Ostwald

Wilhelm Ostwald
Born	2 September 1853(1853-09-02) Riga, Russian Empire
Died	4 April 1932 (aged 78) Leipzig, Germany
Nationality	Germany
Fields	Physical chemistry
Institutions	University of Dorpat Riga Polytechnicum University of Leipzig
Alma mater	University of Dorpat
Doctoral advisor	Carl Schmidt
Doctoral students	Arthur Amos Noyes Georg Bredig Paul Walden
Known for	Ostwald process Ostwald viscometer
Notable awards	Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1909)

Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald (Latvian: Vilhelms Ostvalds; 2 September 1853 – 4 April 1932) was a Baltic German chemist. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1909 for his work on catalysis, chemical equilibria and reaction velocities. Ostwald, Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, and Svante Arrhenius are usually credited with being the modern founders of the field of physical chemistry.

Biography

Early years

Ostwald was born ethnically Baltic German in Riga, to master-cooper Gottfried Wilhelm Ostwald (1824-1903) and Elisabeth Leuckel (1824-1903). He was the middle of two brothers, Eugen (1851-1932) and Gottfried (1855-1918). Ostwald graduated from the University of Tartu, Estonia, in 1875, received his Ph.D. there in 1878 under the guidance of Carl Schmidt, and taught at Tartu from 1875 to 1881 and at Riga Polytechnicum from 1881 to 1887.

Research

Wilhelm Ostwald is usually credited with inventing the Ostwald process (patent 1902), used in the manufacture of nitric acid, although the basic chemistry had been patented some 64 years earlier by Kuhlmann, when it was probably of only academic interest due to the lack of a significant source of ammonia. That may have still been the state of affairs in 1902, although things were due to change dramatically in the second half of the decade as a result of Haber and Bosch's work on their nitrogen fixing process (completed by 1911 or 1913). The date 1908 (six years after the patent) is often given for the invention of the Ostwald process, and it may be that these developments motivated him to do additional work to commercialize the process in that time-frame. Alternatively, six years might simply have been the bureaucratic interval between filing the patent and the time it was granted.

Jacobus van 't Hoff (left) and Wilhelm Ostwald

The combination of these two breakthroughs soon led to more economical and larger-scale production of fertilizers and explosives, of which Germany was to find itself in desperate need during World War I. Ostwald also did significant work on dilution theory leading to his discovery of the law of dilution which is named after him. Ostwald's rule concerns the behaviour of polymorphs. The word mole, according to Gorin, was introduced into chemistry around 1900 by Ostwald. Ostwald defined one mole as the molecular weight of a substance in mass grams. The concept was linked to the ideal gas, according to Ostwald. Ironically, Ostwald's development of the mole concept was directly related to his philosophical opposition to the atomic theory, against which he (along with Ernst Mach) was one of the last holdouts. He explained in a conversation with Arnold Sommerfeld that he was converted by Jean Perrin's experiments on Brownian Motion^[1].

Ostwald was a member of the International Committee on Atomic Weights. As a consequence of World War I this membership ended in 1917 and was not resumed after the war. The 1917 Annual report of the committee ended with the unusual note: "Because of the European war the Committee has had much difficulty in the way of correspondence. The German member, Professor Ostwald, has not been heard from in connection with this report. Possibly the censorship of letters, either in Germany or en route, has led to a miscarriage".

In addition to his work in chemistry, Wilhelm Ostwald was very productive in an extremely broad range of fields. His published work, which includes numerous philosophical writings, contains about forty thousand pages. Ostwald was also engaged in the peace movement of Berta von Suttner.

Among his other interests, Ostwald was a passionate amateur painter who made his own pigments, and who developed a strong interest in color theory in the later decades of his life. He wrote several publications in the field, such as his Malerbriefe (Letters to a Painter, 1904) and Die Farbenfibel (The Color Primer, 1916). His work in color theory was influenced by that of Albert Henry Munsell, and in turn influenced Paul Klee and members of De Stijl, including Piet Mondrian.^[2] He was also interested in the international language movement, first learning Esperanto, then later becoming an Idist.^[3]

He was one of the directors of the Die Brücke institute in München.

Personal life

On 24 April 1880 Ostwald married Helene von Reyher (1854 – 1946), with whom he had five children:

• Grete (born 1882 in Riga; died 1960 in Großbothen)
• Wolfgang (born 1883 in Riga; died 1943 in Dresden)
• Elisabeth (born 1884 in Riga; died 1968 in Großbothen)
• Walter (born 1886 in Riga; died 1958 in Freiburg im Breisgau)
• Carl Otto (born 1890 in Leipzig; died 1958 in Leipzig)

In 1887, he moved to Leipzig where he worked for the rest of his life. Arthur Noyes was one of his students, as was Willis Rodney Whitney.Ostwald died in a hospital in Leipzig on 4 April 1932, and was buried at his house in Großbothen, near Leipzig and then in the Great Cemetery of Riga.

Plaque at Tartu University, Estonia

Publications

• Ostwald, W. (1900). Grundriss der allgemeinen Chemie. Leipzig: Engelmann. 
• Ostwald, W. (1906). Process of manufacturing nitric acid. Patent. 
• Ostwald, W. (1909). Energetische Grundlagen der Kulturwissenschaft (1st ed.). Leipzig. 
• Couturat, L.; Jespersen O., Lorenz R., Ostwald Wilhelm, and Pfaundler L. (1910). International language and science: Considerations on the introduction of an international language into science. London: Constable and Company Limited. 
• Ostwald, W. (1917). Grundriss der allgemeinen Chemie (5th ed.). Dresden: Steinkopff. 

See also

• Ostwald dilution law
• Ostwald's rule
• Ostwald ripening
• Power law fluid
• Timeline of hydrogen technologies

Notes

References

• Clark, F.W. (1916). "Annual report of the international committee on atomic weights". J. Am. Chem. Soc. 38 (11): 2219–2221. doi:10.1021/ja02268a001. 
• Gorin, G. (1994). "Mole and chemical amount: A discussion of the fundamental measurements of chemistry". J. Chem. Education 71 (2). 
• Patrick Coffey, Cathedrals of Science: The Personalities and Rivalries That Made Modern Chemistry, Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-19-532134-0

External links

• Nobel Lecture On Catalysis from Nobelprize.org website
• Biography Biography from Nobelprize.org website
• Works at the Internet Archive
• "The Origin of the Word 'Mole'". ChemTeam.
• Landsitz Energie Grossbothen/Saxony Ostwald and his country seat "Energie" (in English)
• History of the International Committee on Atomic Weights