Wikipedia

Max Volmer

Max Volmer (German: [ˈfɔlmɐ]; 3 May 1885 – 3 June 1965) was a German physical chemist, who made important contributions in electrochemistry, in particular on electrode kinetics. He derived and co-developed the Butler–Volmer equation, and was a professor of chemistry at the Technical University of Berlin.

Max Volmer
Max Volmer(1885–1965), ca. 1958
Born
Max von Volmer

(1885-05-03)May 3, 1885
Hilden, Prussia, Germany
(now in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany)
DiedJune 3, 1965(1965-06-03) (aged 80)
Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany
Resting placeBabelsberg Goethestrasse Cemetery
NationalityGerman
Citizenship Germany
Alma materUniversity of Marburg
University of Leipzig
Known forVolmer–Weber growth
Butler–Volmer equation
Stern–Volmer relationship
Soviet program of nuclear weapons
SpouseLotte Pusch (m. 1929)
AwardsPatriotic Order of Merit (1960)
National Prize (1950)
Scientific career
FieldsPhysical chemistry
InstitutionsGerman Academy of Sciences at Berlin
NII-9 in Russia
Technical University of Berlin
University of Hamburg
Auergesellschaft AG
University of Berlin
ThesisPhotographische Umkehrungserscheinungen (1911)
Doctoral studentsImmanuel Estermann

After the World War II in 1945, Volmer was held in the Soviet custody in Russia and was one of many leading German nuclear scientists in the Soviet program of nuclear weapons, where he headed a design bureau for the production of the heavy water.

Upon his return to East Germany in 1955, he became a professor at the University of Berlin and was president of the East German Academy of Sciences. He later directed the "Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry Institute" of the Technical University of Berlin until his death, aged 80, in 1965.

Biography

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From 1905 to 1909, Volmer studied chemistry at the University of Marburg and earned his PhD in chemistry from the University of Leipzig in 1910-11, based on his work on photochemical reactions in high vacuums.[1]

In 1912, Volmer became an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Leipzig and after completion of his required (per German university rules) Habilitation there in 1914, he became qualified as privatdozent of physical chemistry at the University of Leipzig.[2][3][4]

Career

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Early years

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In 1916, Volmer went to work on military-related research at the Physical Chemistry Institute of the University of Berlin (today the Humboldt University of Berlin). From 1918 to 1920, he found employment as a senior staff scientist at the Auergesellschaft AG in Berlin. In 1919, he invented the mercury steam ejector, and he published a paper,[5] with Otto Stern which resulted in the attribution of the Stern–Volmer equation and constant.[6] Also attributed from his work during this time is the Volmer isotherm.[3][7][8]

In 1920, Volmer was appointed extraordinarius professor of physical chemistry and electrochemistry at the University of Hamburg. In 1922, he was appointed ordinarius professor and director of the Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry Institute of Technical University Berlin (Berlin-Charlottenburg); the position was previously held by Walther Nernst.[3][4][8][9] It was during his time there that he discovered the migration of adsorbed molecules, known as Volmer diffusion. In 1930, he published a paper[10] from which was attributed the Butler-Volmer equation,[11] based on earlier work[12] of John Alfred Valentine Butler. This work formed the basis of phenomenological kinetic electrochemistry.[3]

In Russia

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During the end times of the World War II, Max Volmer, Manfred von Ardenne, director of his private laboratory Forschungslaboratoriums für Elektronenphysik, Gustav Hertz, director of Research Laboratory II at Siemens, and Peter Adolf Thiessen, ordinarius professor at the University of Berlin, had made a pact. The pact was a pledge that whoever first made contact with the Soviets would speak for the rest. The objectives of their pact were threefold: (1) Prevent plunder of their institutes, (2) Continue their work with minimal interruption, and (3) Protect themselves from prosecution for any political acts of the past.[13] Before the end of World War II, Thiessen, a member of the Nazi Party, had Communist contacts.[14] On 27 April 1945, Thiessen arrived at von Ardenne's institute in an armored vehicle with a major of the Soviet Army, who was also a leading Soviet chemist.[15] All four of the pact members were taken to the Soviet Union. Hertz was made head of Institute G, in Agudseri (Agudzery),[16][17] about 10 km southeast of Sukhumi and a suburb of Gul’rips (Gulrip’shi); Volmer was initially assigned to Hertz's institute. Topics assigned to Gustav Hertz's Institute G included: (1) Separation of isotopes by diffusion in a flow of inert gases, for which Gustav Hertz was the leader, (2) Development of a condensation pump, for which Justus Mühlenpfordt was the leader, (3) Design and build a mass spectrometer for determining the isotopic composition of uranium, for which Werner Schütze was the leader, (4) Development of frameless (ceramic) diffusion partitions for filters, for which Reinhold Reichmann was the leader, and (5) Development of a theory of stability and control of a diffusion cascade, for which Heinz Barwich was the leader;[18][19] Barwich had been deputy to Hertz at Siemens.[20] Von Ardenne was made head of Institute A,[21][22] in Sinop,[16][17] a suburb of Sukhumi.

Late in January 1946, Volmer was assigned to the Nauchno-Issledovatel’skij Institut-9 (NII-9, Scientific Research Institute No. 9),[23] in Moscow. Volmer was given a design bureau to work on the production of heavy water; Robert Döpel also worked at NII-9.[24] Volmer's group with Victor Bayerl, a physical chemist and Gustav Richter a physicist, was under Alexander Mikailovich Rosen, and they designed a heavy water production process and facility based on the counterflow of ammonia. The installation was constructed at Norilsk and completed in 1948, after which Volmer's organization was transferred to Zinaida Yershova’s group, which worked on plutonium extraction from fission products.[25]

Return to Germany

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The Gravestone of Max Volmer in Potsdam.

In March 1955, Volmer returned to Germany, and he was honored with the National Prize. On 1 May 1955, he became an ordinarius professor at the Humboldt University of Berlin. On 10 November 1955, became a member of the Wissenschaftlichen Rates für die friedliche Anwendung der Atomenergie of the Council of Ministers of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). From 8 December 1955 to 1959, he became president of the German Academy of Sciences, after which he was vice-president until 1961. From 27 August 1957, he became an initial member of the Forschungsrat of the GDR.[3][4][9]

At Technische Universität Berlin], where Volmer worked for so many years, the Max Volmer Laboratory for Biophysical Chemistry was named in his honor.[26] Also in Volmer's honor, a street was named Volmerstrasse in Berlin-Adlershof, Potsdam, and Hilden.[4]

Personal

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Volmer was married to the physical chemist Lotte Pusch, who later quit her career to support Volmer.: 367  Max and Lotte knew and socialized with the physicist Lise Meitner and the chemist Otto Hahn since the 1920s.[27]

Selected bibliography

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Articles

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  • O. Stern and M. Volmer Über die Abklingzeit der Fluoreszenz, Physik. Zeitschr. 20 183-188 (1919) as cited in Mehra and Rechenberg, Volume 1, Part 2, 2001, 849.
  • T. Erdey-Grúz and M. Volmer Z. Phys. Chem. 150 (A) 203-213 (1930)

Books

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  • Max Volmer, Kinetik der Phasenbildung (1939)
  • Max Volmer, Zur Kinetik der Phasenbildung und der Elektrodenreaktionen. Acht Arbeiten. (Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Geest & Portig K.-G., 1983)
  • Max Volmer und L. Dunsch, Zur Kinetik der Phasenbildung und Elektrodenreaktion. Acht Arbeiten. (Deutsch Harri GmbH, 1983)

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ imprimés, Bibliothèque nationale (France) Département des (1907). Catalogue des dissertations et écrits académiques provenant des échanges avec les universités étrangères et reçus par la Bibliothèque nationale (in French). C. Klincksieck. Retrieved 23 December 2024.
  2. ^ Volmer Archived 2008-03-09 at the Wayback Machine –
  3. ^ a b c d e Volmer Archived 2007-12-05 at the Wayback Machine – Institute of Chemistry, University of Jerusalem and Volmer Archived 2013-01-26 at archive.today – Incredible People.
  4. ^ a b c d Volmer – Volmer.biz.
  5. ^ O. Stern and M. Volmer Über die Abklingzeit der Fluoreszenz, Physik. Zeitschr. 20 183–188 (1919) as cited in Mehra and Rechenberg, Volume 1, Part 2, 2001, 849.
  6. ^ Stern–Volmer Constant Archived 2007-12-22 at the Wayback Machine – Kutztown University.
  7. ^ Volmer Isotherm[permanent dead link‍] – Biophysical Journal.
  8. ^ a b Volmer – Adlershof Aktuell, p. 12.
  9. ^ a b Volmer Archived 2008-03-09 at the Wayback Machine – Technische Universität Berlin].
  10. ^ T. Erdey-Gruz and M. Volmer Z. Phys. Chem. 150 (A) 203-213 (1930).
  11. ^ Butler-Volmer Equation – Encyclopædia Britannica.
  12. ^ J. A. V. Butler Trans. Faraday Society, 19 729 (1924).
  13. ^ Heinemann-Grüder, 2002, 44.
  14. ^ Hentschel, 1996, Appendix F; see the entry for Thiessen.
  15. ^ Oleynikov, 2000, 5.
  16. ^ a b Oleynikov, 2000, 11-12.
  17. ^ a b Naimark, 1995, 213.
  18. ^ Oleynikov, 2000, 12-13 and 18.
  19. ^ Kruglov, 2002, 131.
  20. ^ Naimark, 1995, 209.
  21. ^ Goals of Manfred von Ardennne’s Institute A included: (1) Electromagnetic separation of isotopes, for which von Ardenne was the leader, (2) Techniques for manufacturing porous barriers for isotope separation, for which Peter Adolf Thiessen was the leader, and (3) Molecular techniques for separation of uranium isotopes, for which Max Steenbeck was the leader. In his first meeting with Lavrentij Beria, von Ardenne was asked to participate in building the bomb, but von Ardenne quickly realized that participation would prohibit his repatriation to Germany, so he suggested isotope enrichment as an objective, which was agreed to. By the end of the 1940s, nearly 300 Germans were working at the institute, and they were not the total work force. See Oleynikov, 2000, 10-11.
  22. ^ Institute A was used as the basis for the Sukhumi Physical-Technical Institute. See Oleynikov, 2000, 12.
  23. ^ Today, NII-9 is the Bochvar All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Inorganic Materials, Bochvar VNIINM. See Oleynikov, 2000, 4.
  24. ^ Kruglov, 2002, 131 and 167.
  25. ^ Oleynikov, 2000, 13.
  26. ^ MVL Archived 2007-10-02 at the Wayback Machine – Max Volmer Laboratory for Biophysical Chemistry at the TU Berlin.
  27. ^ Sime, 1997, 367.

References

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  • Heinemann-Grüder, Andreas Keinerlei Untergang: German Armaments Engineers during the Second World War and in the Service of the Victorious Powers in Monika Renneberg and Mark Walker (editors) Science, Technology and National Socialism 30–50 (Cambridge, 2002 paperback edition) ISBN 0-521-52860-7
  • Hentschel, Klaus (editor) and Ann M. Hentschel (editorial assistant and translator) Physics and National Socialism: An Anthology of Primary Sources (Birkhäuser, 1996) ISBN 0-8176-5312-0
  • Kruglov, Arkadii The History of the Soviet Atomic Industry (Taylor and Francis, 2002)
  • Mehra, Jagdish, and Helmut Rechenberg The Historical Development of Quantum Theory. Volume 1 Part 2 The Quantum Theory of Planck, Einstein, Bohr and Sommerfeld 1900–1925: Its Foundation and the Rise of Its Difficulties. (Springer, 2001) ISBN 0-387-95175-X
  • Naimark, Norman M. The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949 (Hardcover – Aug 11, 1995) Belknap
  • Sime, Ruth Lewin Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics (University of California, First Paperback Edition, 1997)
  • Oleynikov, Pavel V. German Scientists in the Soviet Atomic Project, The Nonproliferation Review Volume 7, Number 2, 1 – 30 (2000). The author has been a group leader at the Institute of Technical Physics of the Russian Federal Nuclear Center in Snezhinsk (Chelyabinsk-70).
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Max Volmer.
  • Butler-Volmer Equation – Encyclopædia Britannica
  • MVL – Max Volmer Laboratory for Biophysical Chemistry at the TU Berlin
  • Stern–Volmer Constant – Kutztown University
  • Stern–Volmer Equation – International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry
  • Two Internet sources with the same wording: Volmer – Institute of Chemistry, University of Jerusalem and Volmer – Incredible People
  • Volmer – Technische Universität Berlin]
  • Volmer – Volmer.biz
  • Volmer Isotherm[permanent dead link‍] – Biophysical Journal
  • SIPT - Sukhumi Institute of Physics and Technology, on the website are published the photographs of the German nuclear physicists who had been working for the Soviet nuclear program
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