Hans Georg von Schnering


Hans Georg von Schnering was a German chemist and professor of inorganic chemistry at the University of Münster, honorary professor at the University of Stuttgart and director at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research.

Life

Born in 1931 as the son of a doctor, Schnering initially trained as a baker before embarking on studying chemistry at the University of Münster in 1951. He completed his diploma thesis with Wilhelm Klemm in 1958 and his doctorate with Rudolf Hoppe two years later. As a doctoral candidate, he also stayed in Göttingen to learn from the crystallographer Josef Zemann. Schnering habilitated with the title "Beiträge zur Chemie binärer und ternärer Halogeno- und Oxoverbindungen der Metalle" at the University of Münster in 1964.
In 1966, he became a full professor of special inorganic chemistry at the University of Münster. In 1975, he was appointed director of the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart. Schnering died in 2010 in Aidlingen.

Research

Von Schnering's areas of work were generally structural and solid-state chemistry. Special contributions have been made in the field of structural chemistry of compounds with metal-metal bonds; he laid the foundation for transition metal cluster chemistry, starting with Mo6 clusters found in reduced molybdenum halides. He also explored polyphosphides and -arsenides, which constitute subclasses of Zintl phases: he discovered the “Ufosane” P113-, “aromatic” P64-, P15− and P14S as cutouts from “Hittorf’scher Phosphor”, or As88-, an analogue of S8. The chemistry of complex fluorides, hydroxides, and hydrates were also investigated by him. He also developed the Periodic Nodal Surfaces to understand and classify solids and also to derive structure-property relationships in crystals. Furthermore, he worked on the development of the Electron Localization Function that is nowadays an established tool to understand and visualize the bonding situation in solids.

Selected publications

5 of his most important research articles follow:
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Awards and memberships

Science awards
Memberships