Adolf von Baeyer

This article is about the Nobel Prize winning German chemist, for the founder of the pharmaceutical company Bayer, please see: Friedrich Bayer

Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer (IPA: [ˈbaɪɐ]; October 31, 1835 - August 20, 1917) was a German chemist who synthesized indigo, and was the 1905 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.^[1] Born in Berlin, he initially studied mathematics and physics at Berlin University before moving to Heidelberg to study chemistry with Robert Bunsen. There he worked primarily in August Kekulé's laboratory, earning his doctorate (from Berlin) in 1858. He followed Kekulé to the University of Ghent, when Kekulé became professor there. He became a lecturer at the Berlin Trade Academy in 1860, and a Professor at the University of Strassburg in 1871. In 1875 he succeeded Justus von Liebig as Chemistry Professor at the University of Munich.

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Baeyer's chief achievements include the synthesis and description of the plant dye indigo, the discovery of the phthalein dyes, and the investigation of polyacetylenes, oxonium salts, nitroso compounds (1869) and uric acid derivatives (1860 and onwards) (including the discovery of barbituric acid (1864), the parent compound of the barbiturates). He was the first to propose the correct formula for indole in 1869, after publishing the first synthesis three years earlier. His contributions to theoretical chemistry include the 'strain' (Spannung) theory of triple bonds and strain theory in small carbon rings.^[2]

In 1872 he experimented with phenol and formaldehyde, almost preempting Leo Baekeland's later discovery of Bakelite.

In 1881 the Royal Society of London awarded Baeyer the Davy Medal for his work with indigo. In 1905 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "in recognition of his services in the advancement of organic chemistry and the chemical industry, through his work on organic dyes and hydroaromatic compounds".

Baeyer's name is pronounced like the English word "buyer." His birth name was Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf Baeyer, but throughout most of his life he was known simply as "Adolf Baeyer." On his fiftieth birthday he was raised to the hereditary nobility, changing his name to "Adolf von Baeyer."

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