Herman Frasch
Hermann Frasch ( born December 25, 1851 in Oberrotweil at Gaildorf, Baden- Württemberg, † May 1, 1914 in Paris) was an American oil chemist of German origin.
Life
1868 emigrated to the apothecary's apprentice and son of the mayor Gaildorfer with almost 17 years of Philadelphia in the United States. There he trained in the self-study for chemists and technologists, where he dealt in particular with research questions in the field of petroleum chemistry.
In 1876 he developed in his own laboratory, a method for refining paraffin wax, which he successfully sold to a related company with the Standard Oil Company. In subsequent years, but he concentrated his work on procedures, among other things to improve the distillation of petroleum, the manufacture of white lead from zinc ore, the extraction of sodium from sodium chloride and the production of resistant filaments from treated coal. Developed in 1884 by him in paraffin wax -impregnated paper is still in the packaging of dairy products used.
Worldwide fame reached Frasch shortly thereafter with the introduction of named after him Frasch process for recovery of sulfur from elemental deposits (U.S. Patent No. 461430 of October 20, 1891 ). This elemental sulfur by means of hot steam ( 170 ° C) is melted in the underground and transported under pressure ( compressed air) liquid -days. According to this method, which requires no mining equipment, was won by the 1970s the world most of the sulfur; The purity is in this case about 99%. Today the vast majority of the sulfur comes from the oil and gas industry by the Claus process of hydrogen sulfide. This is included in the gas or falls in the hydrodesulfurization of the crude oil in large quantities.
Fraschs patents made him a wealthy man, not least because the Standard Oil Company needed to be urgently method for the promotion of high-sulfur crude oil. In public, Frasch was known as " sulfur king of Louisiana ." In 1908 he donated his hometown Gaildorf a gymnasium and festival hall, which was destroyed in 1945.
Hermann Frasch died in 1914 at the age of 62 years in Paris. He was buried in a mausoleum in honor of him erected in Gaildorf. In 1924 his remains to the United States was transferred.