Hermann Julius Grüneberg
Hermann Julius Green Berg ( born April 11, 1827 in Stettin, † June 7, 1894 in Cologne ) was a pioneer of the German potash industry and pioneer of mineral fertilizers in agriculture.
Life and work
Green Mountain was the second of six children of August Wilhelm organ builder Green Mountain and his wife Caroline Henriette nee Breslich of Pomerania; one of his brothers was Barnim Green Mountain, who continued his father's organ building.
Hermann Julius Grüneberg attended elementary school at St. John's Church and later the gymnasium and the Friedrich- Wilhelm- school in Szczecin. His professional life began training for pharmacists and the teaching in the pharmacy to Pelican in Szczecin. In this pharmacy - one of the largest in the country - worked Grüneberg longer time in the laboratory under the direction of the chemist G. Garbe.
After geleistetem military service Grüneberg received in September 1850 Royal Prussian patent on a device for the supply and distribution of the necessary for the production of white lead substances. The construction of a factory for the manufacture of white lead after his trial in Sweden was successful, so he built a similar plant in Old Dam near Stettin.
After studying in Berlin at Eilhard Mitscherlich and Gustav Rose, and in Paris with Georges Ville Boussignault and study trips followed by Germany, Switzerland, through France, England and Scotland, where he gained experience in approximately 130 companies and listed. 1860 Green Mountain received his doctorate in Leipzig on the theory of white lead production. Through his research and experiments he made significant improvements in quality and properties of lead white.
The triggered by the Crimean War, lack of saltpeter for making gunpowder led Green Mountain, the first artificial saltpeter by decomposing nitrate of soda with potash in a large facility built by him in Bredow to produce near Stettin. A manufacturing branch in Germany was introduced by his invention, which replaced the foreign Bengalsalpeter almost entirely.
The chemist Hermann Green Mountain and the merchant Julius Vorster founded on 1 November 1858, the company Vorster & Green Mountain in Kalk, near Cologne, which developed into one of the leading large companies in the chemical industry in Germany later than Chemische Fabrik Kalk GmbH. In February 1859 began in lime production of potassium nitrate according to the method Grüneberg'schen.
In May 1859 Green Mountain began with attempts by the presentation of the sulphate of potash from the Staßfurter respectively. Anhaltinische overburden salts from the overburden salts of the salt mines. 1861 and 1862 were taken in Staßfurt and Leopold Hall in operation of Vorster & Green Mountain Kalifabriken. This, the Royal Prussian Patent No. IV 8062 was issued on 30 August 1862. 1865 first potash was produced by the LeBlanc process usually applied only to Sodaerzeugung. At the World Exhibitions in Paris and Philadelphia, the Grüneberg'schen products for their high quality and purity were awarded gold medals. At exhibitions in Vienna, Harlem, Porto, Chemnitz, Metz, Cologne and Stettin the company silver and bronze medals, as well as in London received an Honorable Mention. In the following years, Green Mountain received imperial patents for the preparation of strontium carbonate (1878), by schoenite (1879 ) and for the extraction of schoenite from kainite (1882).
Based on the findings of Justus von Liebig Hermann Green Mountain was instrumental in the introduction of mineral fertilizers in agriculture through experiments, lectures and publications. Together with the French chemists Boussignault and Ville that he introduced pot experiments for fertilization. Edited by him fertilizer tablet was an indispensable aid for agriculture for decades.
Green Mountain designed the Green Mountain 's apparatus for the continuous distillation of ammonia from hitherto untapped sources - the costs incurred in the manufacture of illuminating gas in the large cities gas water. The apparatus was patented on May 10, 1878 by the Imperial Patent Office under the number 5255 and operated in about 100 plants worldwide. This was followed by patents in Austria, Hungary, Italy, France, Great Britain and the United States. Vorster & Green Mountain ammonia factories built in Raderberg, Köln- Nippes, Dusseldorf, Dortmund and Essen. The largest plants were operated in Leipzig, Hamburg, Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
Hermann Grüneberg founded the VDI district of Cologne and together with the Cologne entrepreneur Eugen Langen the West German Association for the protection of inventions, the later German Patent Protection Association. Along with August Wilhelm von Hofmann in 1867, he founded the German Chemical Society and later was co-founder and vice chairman of the German Chemical Industry. He was chairman of the Professional Association Section IV ( Rhineland and Westphalia ) and representatives of the chemical industry in the Rhenish Eisenbahnrat.
A year after his appointment as Commerce died Grüneberg and was buried on the designed by the Berlin architect Otto March and the sculptor Robert Toberentz family grave in the central aisle of Cologne Melaten cemetery. Remember him the Green Mountain School and the Green Mountain road in Cologne-Kalk and a marble bust of Hugo Lederer in Cologne City Museum.