Josef Houben

Heinrich Maria Josef Hubert Houben ( born October 27, 1875 in forest wetland, Rhineland, † June 28, 1940 in Tübingen ) was a German chemist. He expanded, founded by Theodor Weyl multi-volume series " Methods of Organic Chemistry ", also known as Houben -Weyl, and a standard work of organic chemistry.

Life

From 1894 he studied at the Rheinische Friedrich- Wilhelms University in Bonn to study mathematics and astronomy. Under the influence of August Kekulé, he joined the chemistry. In 1898 he received his doctorate as a student of Julius Bredt. After assistant years in Aachen and Bonn he went to Berlin, where he worked at the Institute of Emil Fischer. He habilitated in 1908. During World War I he was wounded several times, then put in charge of laboratories war and economic questions and was from 1917 to 1919 with the title "professor" assistant to the Technological Institute of the University of Berlin. In 1921 he was appointed with simultaneous appointment as associate professor at the university at the Biological Imperial Institute in Berlin -Dahlem, where he worked until his retirement in 1933. During his work in the Imperial Biological Institute Houben improved the already known Hoesch reaction, which is now called the Houben- Hoesch reaction. This polyhydric phenols with nitriles and hydrogen chloride are reacted to Hydroxyketimiden, which can be hydrolyzed to hydroxy ketones.