Wilhelm Ostwald Institute
The Wilhelm Ostwald Institute for Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Leipzig, located at Linnéstraße 2 in Leipzig, is the oldest physical chemistry institute in Germany. It is one of seven institutes of the Faculty of Chemistry and Mineralogy of the University of Leipzig. The institute was ceremoniously inaugurated in 1898 by its first director, Nobel Prize winner Wilhelm Ostwald, and has borne the official name "Wilhelm Ostwald Institute for Physical and Theoretical Chemistry" since 1998.
The institute building
Foundation and first years
As early as 1870, the Ministry of Culture and Public Education in Dresden had made an appointment for the then young field of physical chemistry. Gustav Wiedemann accepted the first professorship for physical chemistry in Leipzig in 1871 and, during this time, led the first "Physical-Chemical Laboratory". On October 25, 2021, the 150th anniversary celebration took place in Leipzig.Wilhelm Ostwald took over this professorship in 1887, while Wiedemann accepted the position to become the chair of physics.
From 1887, the so-called "Second-Chemical Laboratory" under the direction of Wilhelm Ostwald at Brüderstr. 34 in Leipzig had become an internationally important center for physical chemistry. However, the premises could no longer meet this demand.
For this reason, the Saxon Parliament granted 360,000 marks for the construction of a new institute in February 1896. Construction began immediately and as a result, teaching and research could begin as early as the winter semester of 1897.
On January 3, 1898, the newly built Physical-Chemical Institute was inaugurated. On the occasion of the ceremonial opening, Wilhelm Ostwald gave a keynote lecture and several important physicists and chemists at the time took part in the celebration, including Max Planck, Ernst Otto Beckmann and Max Le Blanc. The U-shaped building had been furnished according to the most modern standards of the time: In the basement there was a large and a small battery, on the 1st floor there was a large workroom and equipment rooms, and on the 2nd floor there were two lecture halls. In the attic there was a geological collection. There was also a director's apartment, located in the middle of the institute building and connected to the rest of the building by a corridor.
The old premises in the Brüderstraße were transferred to Ernst Otto Beckmann, for the establishment of a new professorship for applied chemistry.
Max Le Blanc succeeded Ostwald as director in 1906 and made alterations to the building to provide more space especially for electrochemical and photochemical research.
World War II destruction and reconstruction
During the great air raid on Leipzig on December 4, 1943, the institute building was destroyed by incendiary bombs. The south wing was particularly badly hit.The reconstruction of the north wing and parts of the central building were completed in 1951/52 so that work could be resumed. The institute now had a lecture hall, three practical rooms and 24 laboratories. The workshop, collections and administrative rooms could also be used again.
At the beginning of the 1990s, the central building and the north wing were completely refurbished and, in the course of this, the institute was also connected to the municipal district heating supply; until then, the institute operated its own hot water supply.
Research, people and structures of the institute
Between 1887 and 1898
was appointed professor at the University of Leipzig in 1887 and took up this post in October of the same year. He thus took over the so-called "Second Chemical Laboratory" at Brüderstraße 34 from Gustav Wiedemann. The laboratory was divided into three departments "Physical-Chemical Department", "Analytical Department" and "Pharmaceutical Department". At this time, the laboratory was not yet a purely "physico-chemical" institute, but had a more diverse structure and was also responsible, for example, for the basic training of chemists, just as there were teaching activities for pharmacists and high school teachers.Research at the end of the 19th century included in particular the theory of solutions, electrical conductivity, the dissociation of acids and bases, determination of molecular weights, theory of contact potentials, theory of electrical chains, polarization, internal friction, diffusion, and the optical, thermal, and volume relationships in chemical reactions.
Ostwald's dilution law was also published at this laboratory in 1888, after Ostwald had made conductivity measurements of various acids.
Svante Arrhenius had already been a collaborator of Ostwald in Riga and followed him to Leipzig as an assistant in 1888. Arrhenius conducted research in Leipzig until 1891, and in 1903 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his theory of electrolytic dissociation. The development of the Arrhenius equation dates from his time in Leipzig.
Walther Nernst accepted an invitation from Ostwald to come to Leipzig to write his habilitation thesis. He successfully completed the thesis on „Die elektromotorische Wirksamkeit der Jonen" in 1889. In his habilitation, Nernst published the Nernst equation named after him. Nernst received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the year 1920 as "recognition for his thermochemical work."
Julius Wagner was responsible for the analytical department between 1887 and 1897. Together with Ostwald, he developed a new didactics of the subject, gave lectures and designed new experiments for chemistry classes. In 1901, he was appointed the first professor of chemistry didactics in Germany.
Between 1898 and 1933
Wilhelm Ostwald was at the height of his research at the time the institute was founded. Around 1900, he devoted himself in particular to experimental investigations on catalysis and chemical kinetics. In addition, time as an experimental quantity came into focus and with it the beginning of non-equilibrium thermodynamics. He also explored nitric acid production by oxidation of ammonia on a platinum contact and the direct recovery of ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen, together with Eberhard Brauer. Detailed lists of publications from this period are provided, for example, in the book "Physikalische Chemie in Leipzig" by Ulf Messow and Konrad Krause. Ostwald left the institute in 1906 after disagreements with the university administration.Under Ostwald, practical research was carried out at the institute and some apparatus and measuring equipment was built or developed - for example, Ostwald's Urthermostat for controlling temperature and pycnometer for measuring liquid density. In addition, measurements of conductivity, voltage of elements, measurements of viscosity and surface tension were carried out and corresponding apparatuses were refined. The university mechanic Fritz Köhler founded his company on this basis and built these devices for the laboratories independently. Ostwald arranged for his students to complete a practical course in equipment development in this company, which more than 100 students took advantage of.
Max Le Blanc succeeded Ostwald as director. Le Blanc was Ostwald's assistant from 1890 to 1896 and habilitated in Leipzig in 1891 with his first studies on decomposition voltage. He held the post of director for 27 years, the longest anyone has ever held this position. At this time, he was also secretary of the Saxon Academy of Sciences, also longer than anyone else.
During his time, Le Blanc introduced the oscillograph as a measuring instrument of electrochemistry, and continued his work on measuring rapid potential changes on electrodes. He established the following departments including professorships: Photochemical Department, Chemical Department, Physical Chemical Department and Colloid Chemical Department. In addition, there were electrochemical exercises and exercises on catalysis.
Between 1933 and 1947
After Max Le Blanc's retirement, Wilhelm Carl Böttger succeeded him as director on a provisional basis for one year. However, the temporary succession was extended because Johannes Stark wanted to impose Wolfgang Ostwald as director - against the faculty's wish to appoint Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer.On November 1, 1934, Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer was finally appointed as the chair of physical chemistry. He remained director of the institute until 1947. Bonhoeffer's research during this time focused on the labeling of atoms in biochemical processes with deuterium and on the reaction kinetics of gases and processes at electrode surfaces. Wolfgang Ostwald accepted the position of chair in colloid chemistry starting in 1935.
Bonhoeffer retained Le Blanc's structure of dividing the institute into departments. However, the "Analytical Department" was renamed the "Department of Applied Physical Chemistry" after Prof. Böttger retired in 1938. During the time of the 'Drittes Reich', Bonhoeffer retained his position as director, although his entire family worked against the Nazis and despite the threat of arrest on several occasions. One of Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer's younger brothers was the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. From 1941 onwards, all of the Institute's research was directed towards wartime research, and research commissions came directly from the War Ministry. Since the orders were subject to secrecy, quite little is known to this day about the research of this period. The Institute were destroyed in air raids on December 4, 1943, and several following. All chemists then moved back to the original building at Brüderstraße 34. In June 1945, many professors of natural sciences from Leipzig were taken to Western Germany by the American occupiers. Bonhoeffer was able to escape this and remained director of the Physical-Chemical Institute until 1947. The Soviet Military Administration in Germany approved the reopening of the university for February 5, 1946. The faculty of the University of Leipzig shrank from 187 professors to 44 between May 8, 1945, and the reopening - due to denazification, compulsory service in the Soviet Union, and the like. Some chemists were also among them: Of previously 4 professors, only Bonhoeffer and one of the assistants remained in Leipzig after the war. Especially chemists who were familiar with the production and handling of heavy water as this was of great interest in the Soviet Union. From 1946, some operations at the institute could be resumed, work begun during the war could be continued in part, and three doctoral students defended their dissertations in the same year.