Otto Wallach
Encyclopedia
Otto Wallach was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...

 and recipient of the 1910 Nobel prize in Chemistry
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature,...

 for his work on alicyclic compound
Alicyclic compound
An alicyclic compound is an organic compound that is both aliphatic and cyclic. They contain one or more all-carbon rings which may be either saturated or unsaturated, but do not have aromatic character...

s.

Biography

Wallach was born in Königsberg
Königsberg
Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...

, the son of a Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

n official. His father descended from a Jewish family that had converted to Lutheranism
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...

. His mother was an ethnic German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

 of Protestant religion. Wallach's father was transferred to Stettin (Szczecin) and later to Potsdam
Potsdam
Potsdam is the capital city of the German federal state of Brandenburg and part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. It is situated on the River Havel, southwest of Berlin city centre....

. Otto Wallach went to school, a Gymnasium, in Potsdam, where he learned about literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

 and the history of art
History of art
The History of art refers to visual art which may be defined as any activity or product made by humans in a visual form for aesthetical or communicative purposes, expressing ideas, emotions or, in general, a worldview...

, two subjects he was interested his whole life. At this time he also started private chemical experiments at the house of his parents.

In 1867 he started studying chemistry at the University of Göttingen, where at this time Friedrich Wöhler
Friedrich Wöhler
Friedrich Wöhler was a German chemist, best known for his synthesis of urea, but also the first to isolate several chemical elements.-Biography:He was born in Eschersheim, which belonged to aau...

 was head of organic chemistry. After one semester at the University of Berlin with August Wilhelm von Hofmann
August Wilhelm von Hofmann
August Wilhelm von Hofmann was a German chemist.-Biography:Hofmann was born at Gießen, Grand Duchy of Hesse. Not intending originally to devote himself to physical science, he first took up the study of law and philology at Göttingen. But he then turned to chemistry, and studied under Justus von...

, Wallach received his Doctoral degree from the University of Göttingen in 1869, and worked as a Professor in the University of Bonn
University of Bonn
The University of Bonn is a public research university located in Bonn, Germany. Founded in its present form in 1818, as the linear successor of earlier academic institutions, the University of Bonn is today one of the leading universities in Germany. The University of Bonn offers a large number...

 (1870–89) and the University of Göttingen (1889–1915). Wallach died at Göttingen
Göttingen
Göttingen is a university town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Göttingen. The Leine river runs through the town. In 2006 the population was 129,686.-General information:...

.

Major works

During his work with Friedrich Kekulé
Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz
Friedrich August Kekule von Stradonitz was a German organic chemist. From the 1850s until his death, Kekule was one of the most prominent chemists in Europe, especially in theoretical chemistry...

 in Bonn he started a systematic analysis of the terpenes present in essential oil
Essential oil
An essential oil is a concentrated hydrophobic liquid containing volatile aroma compounds from plants. Essential oils are also known as volatile oils, ethereal oils or aetherolea, or simply as the "oil of" the plant from which they were extracted, such as oil of clove...

s. Up to this time only a few had been isolated in pure form, and structural information was sparse. Melting point
Melting point
The melting point of a solid is the temperature at which it changes state from solid to liquid. At the melting point the solid and liquid phase exist in equilibrium. The melting point of a substance depends on pressure and is usually specified at standard atmospheric pressure...

 comparison and the measurement of mixtures was one of the methods to confirm identical substances. For this method the mostly liquid terpenes had to be transformed into crystalline compounds. With stepwise derivatisation, especially additions to the double bond
Double bond
A double bond in chemistry is a chemical bond between two chemical elements involving four bonding electrons instead of the usual two. The most common double bond, that between two carbon atoms, can be found in alkenes. Many types of double bonds between two different elements exist, for example in...

 present in some of the terpenes, he achieved the goal of obtaining crystalline compounds. The investigation of the rearrangement reaction
Rearrangement reaction
A rearrangement reaction is a broad class of organic reactions where the carbon skeleton of a molecule is rearranged to give a structural isomer of the original molecule. Often a substituent moves from one atom to another atom in the same molecule...

s of cyclic unsaturated
Saturation (chemistry)
In chemistry, saturation has six different meanings, all based on reaching a maximum capacity...

 terpenes made it possible to obtain the structure of an unknown terpene by following the rearangments to a known structure of a terpene. With these principal methods he opened the path to systematic research on terpenes.



He was responsible for naming terpene
Terpene
Terpenes are a large and diverse class of organic compounds, produced by a variety of plants, particularly conifers, though also by some insects such as termites or swallowtail butterflies, which emit terpenes from their osmeterium. They are often strong smelling and thus may have had a protective...

 and pinene
Pinene
Pinene is a bicyclic monoterpene chemical compound. There are two structural isomers of pinene found in nature: α-pinene and β-pinene. As the name suggests, both forms are important constituents of pine resin; they are also found in the resins of many other conifers, as well as in non-coniferous...

, and for undertaking the first systematic study of pinene.

He wrote a book about the chemistry of terpenes, "Terpene und Campher" (1909).

Otto Wallach is known for Wallach's rule, Wallach degradation, the Leuckart-Wallach reaction and the Wallach rearrangement
Wallach rearrangement
The Wallach rearrangement, named after Otto Wallach, is an organic reaction and a rearrangement reaction converting an aromatic azoxy compound with sulfuric acid to an azo compound with one arene ring substituted by an hydroxyl group in the aromatic para position.60% to 100% sulfuric acid is...

.

External links

  • Nobel Lecture Alicyclic Compounds from Nobelprize.org website
  • Biography Biography from Nobelprize.org website
  • Otto Wallach at the NNDB
    NNDB
    The Notable Names Database , produced by Soylent Communications, the same entity that produces Rotten, Daily Rotten, Dr. Sputnik's Society Pages and Penny Postcards, is an online database of biographical details of over 36,000 people of note...

     website.



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