Alfred René Jean Paul Ubbelohde FRS (14 December 1907 – 7 January 1988) was a Belgian-born English physical chemist.

Education, early life and career

Ubbelohde was born in

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

, Belgium, in 1907. He was educated at St Paul's School, 1920-1926 and at

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniqu ...

, 1926-1930. He was senior scholar of Christ Church from 1931-1933. He then became a senior researcher in the Department of Thermodynamics at Oxford, 1933-1935. This was followed by excursions as a Dewar Fellow of the Royal Institution, London, 1936-1940 as Principal Experimental Officer at the Ministry of Supply, 1940-1945 and as Professor of Chemistry at Queen's University, Belfast, 1945-1954. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1951. In 1954, Ubbelohde became a professor of thermodynamics at Imperial College London, a position he held until 1975. In 1961 he was awarded CBE; from 1961 to 1975 he was the head of the Chemical Engineering Department at Imperial College; following this he was a senior research fellow at Imperial College from 1975-1988.

Research

Ubbelohde's research interests included chemical thermodynamics, combustion, explosions and detonations, ionic melts, graphite and intercalation compounds. His group was the first to synthesise highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG). Over the course of his career, Ubbelohde wrote six books and some 400 publications. Ubbelohde was the chair of the Solvay Conferences on Chemistry (London), from 1959 to 1980. The Ubbelohde effect, which is the observation that deuteration increases hydrogen bond length, is named after him. He is also credited with coining the term

proton conductor A proton conductor is an electrolyte, typically a solid electrolyte, in which H+ are the primary charge carriers. Composition Acid solutions exhibit proton-conductivity, while pure proton conductors are usually dry solids. Typical materials a ...

. He also is known for studying life from a thermodynamic perspective, and for his eccentric study of the thermodynamics of pigs. In 1960 he bought a pig farm where he raised over 100 pigs and studied them from a thermodynamic perspective. He authored numerous books on chemistry during his career.

Awards and honours

Ubbelohde was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1951. He received the Liversidge Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 1959.

References

1907 births 1988 deaths Thermodynamicists British physical chemists Fellows of the Royal Society {{UK-chemist-stub