Investigation into the chemist Fritz Haber

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Chemist of choice: Fritz Haber


Fritz Haber was born in the town of Breslau, Germany in early December 1868. His family was one of the oldest families in town, he was the son of Siegfried Haber who was a well know merchant in the town. Fritz studied at St. Elizabeth classical school in the town of his birth where he conducted many chemical experiments from a young age.

From 1886 to 1891 Fritz studied chemistry at the University of Heidelberg under the academic advice of Robert Bunsen who had invented the Bunsen burner and also had help discover the elements cesium and rubidium. He also studied at the University of Berlin from guidance from A.W Hoffmann, and at the Technical School at Charlottenburg under Carl Liebbermann.

Once he completed his studies at the universities he went and worked voluntarily for his father's chemical business as he was interested in chemical technology. He then went on to work at the under the eye off Professor Georg Lunge at the Institute of Technology in Zurich. After all this work he finally decided that he wanted to take up a scientific career and went to work with Ludwig Knorr at Hena for one and a half years to publish with him a joint paper on diacetosuccinic  ester yet orthodox methods at the institute under Jena gave Haber little satisfaction. Still uncertain whether to devote himself to chemistry or physics he was offered a job in 1894 at the age of 25 as an assistantship at the  Technische Hochschule of Karlsruhe by the Professor of Chemical Technology there who was Hans Bunte. Bunte was especially interested in combustion chemistry also Carl Engler who also worked at the Hochschule introduced Haber to the study of petroleum. Haber's work later on life was immensely influenced by these two colleagues. Finally in 1986 he qualified as a Privatdozent which meant he wanted to become a university professor. He qualified with a thesis on the expirimental studies of the decomposition and combustion of hydrocarbons. Two years later Haber published a book the Grundriss der technischen Elektrochemie auf theoretischer Grundlage ("The Theoretical Basis of Technical Electro chemistry"), which was based on the lectures he gave at Karlsruhe.

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In 1911 he succeeded his colleague Engler as Director of the Institute for Physical and Electrochemistry at Berlin Dahlem. He remained here until 1933 when the Nazi race laws nearly forced all his staff and Haber to resign. When he resigned he was invited to come to Cambridge, England by Sir William Pope he remained here for a while but as he had been suffering from heart disease for sometime he feared the English winter and moved to Switzerland.

In the following next 10 years Haber carried out many more other electrochemical researches and experiments. During this ...

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