Edith Weyde (17 September 1901 – 10 February 1989) was a German chemist. She developed the silver salt

Diffusion transfer The Kodak verifax is a photo copying approach that uses a wet colloidal diffusion transfer technique patented by Yutzy, H.C. and Yackel, E.C. (1947) The light source is projected to the top crossing the negative being reflected -more or less, accord ...

—"Copyrapid"—which paved the way for the first photocopiers and instant photography. She also laid the foundation for color photography.

Early life and education

Weyde was the second child of an Austrian grammar school teacher in Prague. She grew up in Aussig and finished her Abitur in 1919. Then, she worked for four years as a laboratory assistant for the Verein für chemische und metallurgische Produktion. In 1923, she began studying chemistry at the

Technical University of Dresden TU Dresden (for german: Technische Universität Dresden, abbreviated as TUD and often wrongly translated as "Dresden University of Technology") is a public research university, the largest institute of higher education in the city of Dresden, th ...

. Four years later, she finished her doctorate with Robert Luther at the Photographic Institute of the Technical University of Dresden.

Professional life

Weyde started her first job in the photographic-photochemical laboratory of

I.G. Farbenindustrie AG Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG (), commonly known as IG Farben (German for 'IG Dyestuffs'), was a German chemical and pharmaceutical conglomerate. Formed in 1925 from a merger of six chemical companies—BASF, Bayer, Hoechst, Agfa, ...

in Oppau in 1928. After four years, she was transferred to the Agfa photo-paper factory in Leverkusen. She worked on improving the tropical suitability of photographic paper and for this purpose developed stabilizers for the photographic layers. She was involved in the development of the first Agfacolor papers from 1937 and contributed to the success of early color photography.

Inventions

Weyde developed the silver salt

method—also called "Copyrapid"—which was a process for the accelerated production of a photographic positive image according to an original. This led to the development of photocopiers, instant film and instant cameras.

Awards

* 1963 Kulturpreis of the Deutschen Gesellschaft für Photographie * Silberne Gesellschaftmedaille of the Fotografische Gesellschaft Wien * 1965 Honorary Membership of the Society for Imaging Science and Technology * 1965 Diesel-Medaille of the Erfinder-Verband Nürnberg * 1973 Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society London Also, a street in Leverkusen is named after her.

References

External links

*Interview with Weyde from 1988
Excerpt 1
an
Excerpt 2
*Demonstration of the "blitzcopy" – the "copyrapid" process
Video demonstration
{{DEFAULTSORT:Weyde, Edith 20th-century German chemists German women chemists 20th-century German inventors 1901 births 1989 deaths Agfa