August Freund (30 July 1835 – 28 February 1892) was an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n chemist who in 1881 first synthesised

cyclopropane Cyclopropane is the cycloalkane with the molecular formula (CH2)3, consisting of three methylene groups (CH2) linked to each other to form a ring. The small size of the ring creates substantial ring strain in the structure. Cyclopropane itself ...

. Freund was born in 1835 in the town of

Kęty Kęty is a town in Oświęcim County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Poland with 18,955 inhabitants (2012). The town located in Silesian Foothills dates its earliest document from 1277 when Polish prince of Opole Władysław confirmed sale of the ...

, Austria-Hungary. (The town now lies in Poland.) After graduating from the gymnasium (an advanced secondary school) in

Cieszyn Cieszyn ( , ; cs, Těšín ; german: Teschen; la, Tessin; szl, Ćeszyn) is a border town in southern Poland on the east bank of the Olza River, and the administrative seat of Cieszyn County, Silesian Voivodeship. The town has 33,500 inhabitant ...

(then in Austria-Hungary, now on the Polish border with the Czech Republic), he studied pharmacy in

Lviv Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...

(then in Austria-Hungary, now in Ukraine) and then in Leipzig, Germany. After studying at Lviv University from 1856-1858, he received a master's degree in pharmacy. He then assisted professor

Leopold von Pebal Leopold von Pebal (29 December 1826 – 17 February 1887) was an Austrian chemist. In 1851 he obtained his PhD at the University of Graz, followed by several years working as an assistant at the Joanneum. In 1855 he became a privat-docent of ...

in his investigations of petroleum. By 1861, he was teaching at a gymnasium in

Ternopil Ternópil ( uk, Тернопіль, Ternopil' ; pl, Tarnopol; yi, טאַרנאָפּל, Tarnopl, or ; he, טארנופול (טַרְנוֹפּוֹל), Tarnopol; german: Tarnopol) is a city in the west of Ukraine. Administratively, Ternopi ...

(then in Austria-Hungary, now in Ukraine). By 1869, he was appointed a professor at the

realschule ''Realschule'' () is a type of secondary school in Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It has also existed in Croatia (''realna gimnazija''), the Austrian Empire, the German Empire, Denmark and Norway (''realskole''), Sweden (''realskola''), ...

(secondary school) in Lviv. He then began working towards a doctoral degree, receiving a doctorate from Leipzig University in 1871. In 1872, he became a professor of chemistry at the Lviv Technical University. There he investigated fermentation, petroleum, and

ketone In organic chemistry, a ketone is a functional group with the structure R–C(=O)–R', where R and R' can be a variety of carbon-containing substituents. Ketones contain a carbonyl group –C(=O)– (which contains a carbon-oxygen double bo ...

s — among other subjects. He became dean of the Department of General and Analytical Chemistry, and from 1878, dean of the Department of Technical Chemistry. He was elected rector of the Polytechnic three times. In 1881 he discovered a method for synthesising cyclopropane: he treated 1,3 - dibromopropane with sodium metal. The method now bears his name. He was able to synthesise enough cyclopropane to do several chemical reactions and derive from the results the three-membered ring structure of cyclopropane. He died in Lviv in 1892.A brief notice of Freund's death appeared in: ''Chemiker Zeitung'', 16 (105) :
1975
(December 31, 1892).

Selected writings

* August Freund (1861
"Beiträge zur Kenntniss der phenylschwefligen und der Phenylschwefelsäure"
(Contributions to our knowledge of phenylsulfurous and phenylsulfuric acids), ''Annalen der Chemie'', 120 (1) : 76–89. * August Freund (1861
"Ueber die Natur der Ketone"
(On the nature of ketones), ''Journal für praktische Chemie'', 82 (1) : 214-231. * August Freund, ''Zarys chemii do użytku szkół gimnazyalnych'' utline of chemistry for use in gymnasiums(Lviv, Austria-Hungary: I. Zwiazkowa, 1883)

n Polish N, or n, is the fourteenth Letter (alphabet), letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is English alphabet# ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Freund, August 19th-century Austrian people 19th-century chemists Austrian chemists Jewish chemists People from Oświęcim County Jews from Galicia (Eastern Europe) Lviv Polytechnic rectors 1835 births 1892 deaths