Name Ernst Riesenfeld | Died May 19, 1957 | |
Ernst Hermann Riesenfeld (25 October 1877 – 19 May 1957) was a German/Swedish chemist.
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Biography
He was born in Brieg (then Germany, now Brzeg, Poland), as son of the physician (Sanitatsrat) Dr. Emanuel Riesenfeld, and attended school in this town. Following his family’s move to Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland) he attended the humanistic Konig-Wilhelms Gymnasium, which he left in 1897 (Max Born attended the same Gymnasium until 1901).
He studied general natural sciences at the Universities of Heidelberg and Gottingen (beginning in 1899). At the latter University he mainly dealt with physical chemistry and submitted his PhD thesis “Ueber elektrolytische Erscheinungen und elektromotorische Krafte an der Grenzflache zweier Losungsmittel”. This work was supervised by Professor Walther Nernst. This pioneering work is remembered as the starting point of what is now known as the electrochemistry at the interface between two immiscible electrolyte solutions (ITIES) which now constitutes a research field of its own. The determination of the free energies of ion transfer between aqueous and organic solutions is of great importance for biology, physiology, pharmacy, and for liquid-liquid extraction in chemistry. Riesenfeld, together with Nernst, also developed a highly sensitive torsion displacement balance which is now known as ‘Nernst balance’.
In 1913 Riesenfeld was appointed as Professor in Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany), and in 1920 he became Professor at the University of Berlin. Because of his Jewish origin, he lost his position during the Nazi regime in 1934 and moved to Sweden, where he worked until 1952 at the Nobel Institute of Physical Chemistry. During his time at the Nobel Institute, Riesenfeld worked on the thermal formation of ozone at high temperatures.
Riesenfeld was also the author of a well-known textbook and laboratory manual on inorganic chemistry which have been published in many editions and translations.
Riesenfeld died in Stockholm on 19 May 1957.
Family
In 1911 Riesenfeld married Johanna (Hanna) Johansson (1878–1964), a sister of Maria Johansson (1871–1957), the second wife of the chemist Svante Arrhenius. He had three children: Ernst Harald Riesenfeld (1913–2008), who became Professor of Theology (New Testament) at the University of Uppsala, Hans Erik Riesenfeld (1914–2001), a paediatrician, and Anna Karin Riesenfeld (1920–1992), a high school teacher of languages.