Article ID: CBB486745268

From Cosmochemistry to Fuel Cells: Notes on Emil Baur, Physical Chemist (2015)

unapi

Few historians of chemistry will be familiar with the name Emil Baur (1873-1944), except perhaps if they specialize in the history of fuel cells. Although he has an entry in Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, he is not described in either Lexikon bedeutender Chemiker or Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1). Yet Baur, a second-generation physical chemist, was far from an obscure scientist in his own time, and during his long and distinguished career in Zurich he contributed interesting work covering a wide range of the chemical landscape. From 1911 to 1942 he was professor at the Polytechnic University better known as the ETH (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule). The only biographical accounts of Baur are two obituaries written by William Dupré Treadwell, who from 1916 to 1918 worked under Baur at the ETH Institute of Physical Chemistry and subsequently served as professor of analytical chemistry at the ETH (2). Apart from providing some biographical information concerning Baur, this paper discusses select cases of his scientific work, including rare earth research, mineralogy, chemical kinetics, and his extensive electrochemical research on fuel cells. In addition, it describes his brief connection to Einstein and also Baur’s views on the more general aspects of physical chemistry, including his possible anti-atomism (3).

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Authors & Contributors
Bracco, Christian
Johannes Lyklema
Shintaro Furuya
Orens, Jeffrey
Glass, Philip
Bhattacharyya, Kankan
Concepts
Biographies
Physical chemistry
Physics
Electrochemistry
Chemistry
Light
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
21st century
20th century, early
Places
Milan (Italy)
Russia
Germany
India
Great Britain
Institutions
Istituto Lombardo (Milan)
Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (Zürich)
Solvay Conferences
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