Hermann Kolbe

Hermann Kolbe
Kolbe, c. 1860
Born
Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe

(1818-09-27)27 September 1818
Elliehausen, near Göttingen, Kingdom of Hanover
Died25 November 1884(1884-11-25) (aged 66)
NationalityGerman
Alma materUniversity of Marburg
Known forKolbe electrolysis,
Kolbe–Schmitt reaction
Kolbe nitrile synthesis
AwardsDavy Medal (1884)
ForMemRS (1877)
Scientific career
FieldsChemist
InstitutionsUniversity of Marburg
University of Leipzig
Doctoral advisorRobert Bunsen
Friedrich Wöhler
Doctoral studentsPeter Griess
Aleksandr Mikhailovich Zaitsev
Theodor Curtius
Ernst Otto Beckmann
Carl Graebe
Oscar Loew
Constantin Fahlberg
Nikolai Menshutkin
Vladimir Markovnikov
Jacob Volhard
Ludwig Mond
Alexander Crum Brown
Maxwell Simpson
Frederick Guthrie [Note, not primary advisor for all in this list]

Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe (27 September 1818 – 25 November 1884[1]) was a major contributor to the birth of modern organic chemistry. He was a professor at Marburg and Leipzig. Kolbe was the first to apply the term synthesis in a chemical context, and contributed to the philosophical demise of vitalism through synthesis of the organic substance acetic acid from carbon disulfide, and also contributed to the development of structural theory. This was done via modifications to the idea of "radicals" and accurate prediction of the existence of secondary and tertiary alcohols, and to the emerging array of organic reactions through his Kolbe electrolysis of carboxylate salts, the Kolbe-Schmitt reaction in the preparation of aspirin and the Kolbe nitrile synthesis. After studies with Wöhler and Bunsen, Kolbe was involved with the early internationalization of chemistry through work in London (with Frankland). He was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and won the Royal Society of London's Davy Medal in the year of his death. Despite these accomplishments and his training important members of the next generation of chemists (including Zaitsev, Curtius, Beckmann, Graebe, Markovnikov, and others), Kolbe is best remembered for editing the Journal für Praktische Chemie for more than a decade, in which his vituperative essays on Kekulé's structure of benzene, van't Hoff's theory on the origin of chirality and Baeyer's reforms of nomenclature were personally critical and linguistically violent. Kolbe died of a heart attack in Leipzig at age 66, six years after the death of his wife, Charlotte.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Britannica bio was invoked but never defined (see the help page).