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Educación Química, Vol. 1, Núm. 0

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Educación Química, Vol. 1, Núm. 0 PARA QUITARLE EL POLVO La química en la historia, His life and work para la enseñanza Kurt Wohl Jaime Wisniak* Resumen After participating in the First World War he Kurt Wohl (1896-1962) fue un brillante científico went to study chemistry at the universities of the Free teórico que trabajó en áreas tan diferentes como la City of Danzig, Heildelberg, and Berlin. He did his fotosíntesis y las llamas. Amargos sucesos antes de Ph.D. studies at the University of Berlin under the la Segunda Guerra Mundial lo obligaron a cambiar direction of Walther Nernst (1864-1941; 1921 Nobel de ocupación varias veces, pero a pesar de ello, él Prize in Chemistry) and graduated in 1923, summa contribuyó en forma duradera al tema de ter- cum laude, with a thesis related to the specific heat modinámica de soluciones y propiedades de trans- and dissociation of diatomic gases. porte de los gases a altas temperaturas y presiones. After graduation he was appointed assistant in the Physikalisch-Chemischen Institut (Physical Chemis- Abstract try Institute) of Nernst, in Berlin, where he began Kurt Wohl (1896-1962) was a brilliant theoretician working with the group of Max Bodenstein (1871- who worked in areas as widely different as photosyn- 1943). At the Institute he continued his research on thesis and flames. Bitter events before World War II the specific heat of gases, their dissociation, explo- forced him to change activities several times, but in sion methods, and equilibrium states. In addition, he spite of this he made lasting contributions to the did work on the London theory of the van der Waals thermodynamics of solutions and transport proper- forces (Wohl, 1931). ties of gases at high temperatures and pressures. Bodenstein recognized the exceptional charac- teristics of Wohl and promptly incorporated him to the editorial board of the journal Zeitschrift Physical chemists and chemical engineers are famil- für Physikalische Chemie (Journal of Physical Chemistry). iar with Wohl through his model for describing the Between 1923 and 1933 Wohl had as doctoral stu- behavior and phase equilibrium of a real solution. dents Günther von Elbe, who would become one of They are generally unaware of his rich contributions the foremost authorities in the area of combustion in other scientific areas such as the application of and flames, and Michel Magat (Wohl and Magat, thermodynamics and reaction chemistry to photo- 1932). synthesis and plant respiration, determination of In January 1933 the National Socialist Party heat capacities and dissociation rates of gases at high assumed the government of Germany and in April temperatures, and the theory of combustion and 7 of the same year regulations were issued to purge flames. Here we describe his personal life and career, the Civil Service, including the universities, of social- his scientific achievements, and, in particular, his con- ists, democrats, and Jews. The first laws forbade the tributions to thermodynamics and plant physiology. employment of Jews in government establishments, except in some circumstances like having participat- Life and career (Jost, 1963; von Elbe, 1963) ing in WWI. Wohl’s life suffered a serious change and Kurt Wohl was born in Berlin, on December 3, 1896, he could continue working only because he had the son of Alfred Wohl, a professor of chemistry indeed participated in the First World War. He first at the University of Danzig, known for his contribu- accepted a temporary arrangement of semi-retire- tions to the theory of equations of state. ment from university and between 1936 and 1938 he could perform only work of a technical value, includ- ing a position at I. G. Farberindustrie. During this * Department of Chemical Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel 84105. period he developed an interest in the theory of plant Correo electrónico: [email protected] assimilation and published several papers dealing with the kinetic and energetic aspects of the subject Recibido: 14 de junio de 2002; aceptado: 17 de agosto de 2002. (Gaffron and Wohl, 1936; Wohl, 1937). 36 Educación Química 14[1] PARA QUITARLE EL POLVO In September 1935 the Nuremberg laws were home in Zehlendorf (a district of Berlin) their musical enacted that prohibited the employment of Jews in evenings were well known. There they would play almost every activity. In the first supplementary de- clarinet, chamber music, and Jewish music, al- cree of Nov. 14, 1935, these laws were made more though Hitler had forbid playing the latter. Wohl specific by defining who was a Jew and by declaring remained interested all his life in art, literature, paint- explicitly that ‘‘a Jew cannot be a citizen of the Reich, ing, and music. After moving to Newark, Wohl’s he cannot exercise the right to vote; he cannot home continued to be a meeting place for musical occupy public office.’’ Other enactments were de- evenings. signed to complete the process of Jewish segregation. Kurt Wohl died on September 3, 1962, in In the beginning of 1939, as a result of these Newark, Delaware, of complications during a heart regulations, Wohl immigrated to England where he operation. stayed a little less than four years. He gave a very successful seminar about photosynthesis at the Bal- Scientific work liol College in Oxford; this seminar led to his ap- Wohl did research in very different fields that in a pointment to the Department of Botany of the uni- way reflect the influence of external events on his versity working with William Owen James. While at life. In Germany he dedicated himself mainly to Balliol he continued the work on the assimilation of thermodynamics (equations of state, osmotic pressu- CO2 that he had initiated in Germany with Gaffron re, heat effects), in England to heat balance of plant (Gaffron and Wohl, 1936). physiological processes, and in the US to thermody- By the end of 1942 Wohl immigrated to the US namics of solutions, and phenomena related to com- where his family had moved before. After some time, bustion. We will now discuss some of Wohl’s most and a stay at Princeton University, he accepted a po- important contributions. sition as professor of chemical engineering at the University of Delaware, Newark. His only son, 1. Energy processes in plants Hellmut, became a professor of art in the Fine Arts Wohl worked on the application of thermodynamics Department at Yale University. concepts to the analysis of energy processes in plants, At Delaware he dedicated himself to thermody- first in Germany and then in England. He analyzed namics and combustion processes. He was also in- in particular the processes of energy capture (photo- terested in gas turbines and jet engines. All these synthesis) and utilization (respiration) (Wohl, 1940; subjects were part of the more general area of trans- Wohl and James, 1942) and his results will be dis- port phenomena, flow processes, and chemical reac- cussed in what follows. tions that interested him. Wohl was also interested in the phenomena of diffusion in flames, laminar flames, and turbulent flames, and flame analysis 1.1 Photosynthesis (Wohl, 1937; 1940) spectroscopy in all wavelengths. His achievements Wohl work in this area is interesting because it re- were reflected in the successful conferences he gave flects what was known (and not known) about pho- during the seven symposia on Combustion and tosynthesis sixty years earlier. Photosynthesis in Flame and Explosion Phenomena that took place green plants means the transformation of carbon from 1948 on. The nineth (and last symposium) took dioxide and water into oxygen and carbohydrate by place in August 1962 at Cornell University, some the action of light. The overall equation for the time before he died. process is Among his achievements we can mention are nCO2 + nH2O → nO2 + (CH2O)n (1) his serving as a member of the Sub-committee on Combustion of the National Advisory Committee for Equation (1) indicates that photosynthesis is a Aeronautics, charter member of The Combustion light-energized oxidation-reduction process. Institute, and working as a consultant for the chemi- At that time it was not known how the synthesis cal and motor industry. In 1953 he was invited to was achieved, or the chemical intermediates and Göttingen University were he lectured on the ther- enzymes involved in the process. The product of modynamics and mechanisms of combustion. the reduction of CO2 had the empirical formula In 1924 he married the pianist Margarete (CH2O)n yet it was not known whether this group left Wocke. Music accompanied their life and at their the reaction site as formaldehyde (CH2O), or in some Enero de 2003 37 PARA QUITARLE EL POLVO more condensed form (Wohl, 1940). The only infor- reducing centers were necessarily occupied by X4 mation available was the amount of incident light and that at each reducing center one oxygen mo- absorbed by chlorophyll, as well as the amount of the lecule would be formed every τ seconds. Wohl con- latter, and the rates of CO2 consumption and O2 clusions matched the experimental fact that at moderate production. temperatures and low to medium light intensities, the Wohl first analyzed the energy requirements of rate of photosynthesis increased as the intensity in- the process assuming, as was usual, that formaldehy- creased and was independent of the temperature. At de was the primary product of photosynthesis. Since higher light intensity levels the rate became increa- eq (1) required 130 kcal/mol of CO2 or (O2) and for singly dependent on temperature and less dependent one photo-act the quantum energy available (red on intensity, a feature characteristic of chemical light) was 42.6 kcal, it meant that the reduction reactions. of CO2 required at least three primary photo-acts.
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