Wilhelm Ostwald


Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald was a Baltic German chemist and philosopher. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1909 for his scientific contributions to the fields of catalysis, chemical equilibria and reaction velocities. Ostwald, Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, Walther Nernst, and Svante Arrhenius are credited with being the founders of the field of physical chemistry.

Early life and education

Ostwald was born ethnically Baltic German in Riga, to master-cooper Gottfried Wilhelm Ostwald and Elisabeth Leuckel. He was the middle child of three, born after Eugen and before Gottfried.
Ostwald graduated from the University of Dorpat, Estonia, in 1875. He also earned his Ph.D. at the University of Dorpat in 1878, with Carl Schmidt as his thesis advisor. During this time, Ostwald also taught at Co-Arc from 1875 to 1881 and at Riga Polytechnicum from 1881 to 1887.

Academic career

Ostwald began is career as an independent investigator in 1875 while at the University of Dorpat. His initial research focused on mass action, chemical affinity, electrochemistry, and chemical dynamics. He continued this research in 1877 as an unpaid investigator at the University of Dorpat, working in the Physics Institute and the Chemistry Laboratory at the university.
In 1881, Ostwald became a full time Professor of Chemistry at the Polytechnicum in Riga. In 1887, he became Professor of Physical Chemistry at Leipzig University. Ostwald remained on the faculty at Leipzig University until his retirement in 1906. He also served as the first "exchange professor" at Harvard University in 1904 and 1905.
During Ostwald's academic career, he had many research students who became accomplished scientists in their own rite. These included future Nobel Laureates Svante Arrhenius, Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, and Walther Nernst. All of these students became notable for their contributions to physical chemistry.

Scientific contributions

Nitric acid process

Ostwald invented a process for the inexpensive manufacture of nitric acid by oxidation of ammonia. He was awarded patents for this process. Ostwald's patent made use of a catalyst and described conditions under which the yield of nitric acid was near the theoretical limit. Aspects of the basic process had also been patented some 64 years earlier by Kuhlmann. Kuhlmann's process did not become industrially significant, likely due to the lack of an inexpensive source of ammonia. Shortly after Ostwald's finding, inexpensive ammonia became available as a result of Haber and Bosch's invention of a process for nitrogen fixing process for ammonia synthesis. The combination of these two breakthroughs soon led to more economical and larger-scale production of fertilizers and explosives, of which Germany was in short supply during World War I. The process is often referred to as the Ostwald Process.

Further scientific research

Ostwald also conducted significant research on dilution theory leading to his discovery of the law of dilution which is named after him. Ostwald's rule concerns the behaviour of polymorphs. The word mole, according to Gorin, was introduced into chemistry around 1900 by Ostwald. Ostwald defined one mole as the molecular weight of a substance in mass grams. The concept was linked to the ideal gas, according to Ostwald. Ironically, Ostwald's development of the mole concept was directly related to his philosophical opposition to the atomic theory, against which he was one of the last holdouts. He explained in a conversation with Arnold Sommerfeld that he was converted by Jean Perrin's experiments on Brownian Motion.
In 1906 Ostwald was elected a member of the International Committee on Atomic Weights. As a consequence of World War I this membership ended in 1917 and was not resumed after the war. The 1917 Annual report of the committee ended with the unusual note: "Because of the European war the Committee has had much difficulty in the way of correspondence. The German member, Professor Ostwald, has not been heard from in connection with this report. Possibly the censorship of letters, either in Germany or en route, has led to a miscarriage".
In addition to his work in chemistry, Wilhelm Ostwald was very productive in an extremely broad range of fields. His published work, which includes numerous philosophical writings, contains about forty thousand pages. Ostwald was also engaged in the peace movement of Berta von Suttner.
Among his other interests, Ostwald was a passionate amateur painter who made his own pigments, and who developed a strong interest in color theory in the later decades of his life. He wrote several publications in the field, such as his Malerbriefe and Die Farbenfibel. His work in color theory was influenced by that of Albert Henry Munsell, and in turn influenced Paul Klee and members of De Stijl, including Piet Mondrian. He was also interested in the international language movement, first learning Esperanto, then later supporting Ido and had become member of Committee of the Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language. Ostwald donated half the proceedings of his 1909 Nobel prize to the Ido movement, funding the Ido magazine Progreso which he had proposed in 1908.
Ostwald adopted the philosophy of Monism as advanced by Ernst Haeckel and became President of the Monistic Alliance in 1911. He used the Alliance's forum to promote Social Darwinism, eugenics and euthanasia. Ostwald's Monism influenced Carl G. Jung's identification of psychological types.
Ostwald was one of the directors of the Die Brücke institute in Munich. The institute was sponsored, significantly, from Ostwald's Nobel Prize money. Through the institute, Ostwald's intention was to develop a standardized system for scholarly publications.

Honours and awards

Ostwald received the 1909 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his contributions to understanding catalysis and for his investigations of the fundamental principles underlying chemical equilibria and reaction rates. Ostwald, donated more than USD40,000 of his Nobel Prize award money to advance the cause of the Ido language.
In 1923, Ostwald was awarded the Wilhelm Exner Medal, recognizing the economic impact of Ostwald's scientific contributions.
In 1904 he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Ostwald crater, which is on the far side of the Earth's moon was named in honor of Wilhelm Ostwald.

Personal life

On 24 April 1880 Ostwald married Helene von Reyher, with whom he had five children. These were: Grete, born in Riga and died in Großbothen; Wolfgang born 1883 in Riga and died in Dresden; Elisabeth born in Riga and died in Großbothen; Walter born in Riga and died in Freiburg im Breisgau; and Carl Otto born in Leipzig and died in Leipzig. Wolfgang Ostwald also became a notable scientist.
Ostwald was initiated to the Scottish Rite Masonry and became Grand Master of the Grand Lodge "Zur Aufgehenden Sonne" in Bayreuth.
In 1887, he moved to Leipzig where he worked for the rest of his life. Arthur Noyes was one of his students, as was Willis Rodney Whitney. On his religious views, Ostwald was an atheist. Ostwald died in a hospital in Leipzig on 4 April 1932, and was buried at his house in Großbothen, near Leipzig and then in the Great Cemetery of Riga.

In fiction

He appears as a character in Joseph Skibell's 2010 novel, A Curable Romantic.
Ostwald is also mentioned in Italo Svevo's 1923 novel, Zeno's Conscience.

Representative publications