Walter Reppe

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Walter Reppe (b. 29 July 1892 in Göringen, d. 26 July 1969 in Heidelberg) was a German chemist. He is notable for having developed acetylene chemistry.

Contents 1 Education and career 2 Acetylene chemistry 3 Reppe chemistry 4 Post-war 5 Publications 6 References 7 Further reading

[edit] Education and career

Walter Reppe began his study of the natural sciences University of Jena in 1911. Interrupted by the First World War, he obtained his doctorate in Munich in 1920.

In 1921, Reppe worked for BASF's main laboratory. From 1923, he worked on the catalytic dehydration of formamide to prussic acid in the indigo laboratory, developing this procedure for industrial use. In 1924, he left research for 10 years, only resuming it in 1934.

[edit] Acetylene chemistry

Reppe began his interest in acetylene in 1928. Acetylene is a gas which can take part in many chemical reactions. However, it was explosive and accidents often occurred. Because of this danger, small quantities of acetylene were used at a time, and always without high pressures. In fact, it was forbidden to compress acetylene over 1.5 bar at BASF.

Reactions at such low pressures did not correspond at all to the traditions at BASF, and one could expect no useful process engineering useful results. Reppe commented in 1949 retrospectively: "therefore the necessity resulted to break with all delivered opinions and to study first of all the acetylene decay with consideration of the most diverse test conditions of reason on, in order to determine suitable safety precautions, one safe working also in the industrial yardstick made possible."^{[citation needed]} To work with acetylene safely, Reppe designed special test tubes, the so-called "Reppe glasses" — stainless steel spheres with screw-type cap, which permitted high pressure experiments. The efforts ended finally with a large number of interconnected reactions, known as Reppe chemistry.

[edit] Reppe chemistry

The high pressure reactions catalysed by heavy metal acetylides, especially copper acetylide, or metal carbonyls was called the Reppe Chemistry. There are four large classes of reactions:

• The vinylization according to the equation:

• Preparing ethynyldiols from aldehydes according to the equation:

• Reactions with carbon monoxide:

This simple synthesis is used to prepare acrylic acid derivates for the production of acrylic glass.

• The cyclic polymerization

This reaction gives access to benzene and cyclooctatetraene.

From these four main reactions, numerous products, which serve mostly for further procedures which are useful for the syntheses of lacquers, adhesives, foam materials, textile fibers and medicines could now be produced.

[edit] Post-war

After the Second World War, Reppe led the research of BASF from 1949 up to his retirement in 1957. From 1952 to 1966, he also sat on the supervisory board. He was also a professor at the University of Mainz and TH Darmstadt from 1951 and 1952 respectively. Walter Reppe led 1949 up to its retirement 1957 the research of the BASF, from 1952 to 1966 sat he in the supervisory board, since 1951 was he a professor at the University of Mainz, since 1952 also to the TH Darmstadt.

[edit] Publications

• Neue Entwicklungen auf dem Gebiet der Chemie des Acetylen und Kohlenoxyds (New developments in the area of the chemistry acetylene and carbon monoxide). Springer Berlin, Göttingen, Heidelberg. 1949. 184 pages.
• Reppe, W.; Schlichting, O.; Klager, K.; Toepel, T. (1948). "Cyclisierende Polymerisation von Acetylen I Über Cyclooctatetraen". Justus Liebigs Ann. Chem.: 1-93. 
• Reppe, W.; Schlichting, O.; Meister, H. (1948). "Cyclisierende Polymerisation von Acetylen II Über die Kohlenwasserstoffe C₁₀H₁₀ C₁₂H₁₂ Azulen". Justus Liebigs Ann. Chem.: 93-104. 
• Reppe, W.; Schweckendiek W. J (1948). "Cyclisierende Polymerisation von Acetylen III Benzol, Benzolderivate und hydroaromatische Verbindungen". Justus Liebigs Ann. Chem.: 104-116. 

[edit] References

This article is translated from the german wikipedia article, de:Walter Reppe.

[edit] Further reading

• Documents by and about Walter Reppe in the catalog of the German national library
• Morris P. J. T. (1992). "The Technology-Science Interaction - Reppe, Walter and Cyclooctatetraene Chemistry". Bitisch Journal of the History of Science 25 (84): 145-167. 
• Mummel H. G. . (1984). "Reppe, Walter 1892 - 1969 - Obituary". Chemishe Berichte-Recueil 117 (3): R1-R21. 
• Biography at the European Association for Chemical and Molecular Sciences