Emilian Bratu (8 August 1904 – 31 March 1991) was a Romanian chemical engineer, founder of chemical engineering education in Romania. With the Austrian physical chemist

Otto Redlich Otto Redlich (November 4, 1896 – August 14, 1978) was an Austrian physical chemist Physical chemistry is the study of macroscopic and microscopic phenomena in chemical systems in terms of the principles, practices, and concepts of physics suc ...

he studied the dissociation constant of heavy water.Em. Bratu, E. Abel, O. Redlich, Die elektrolytische Dissoziation des schweren Wassers, Zeitschrift für physikalische Chemie, 173, 353 (1935)

Life and work

He was born in

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...

and studied at the National School of Bridges and Roads, the future

Politehnica University of Bucharest Politehnica University of Bucharest ( ro, Universitatea Politehnica din București) is a technical university in Bucharest, Romania. 200 years of activity have been celebrated lately, as the university was founded in 1818.electrochemistry Electrochemistry is the branch of physical chemistry concerned with the relationship between electrical potential difference, as a measurable and quantitative phenomenon, and identifiable chemical change, with the potential difference as an outco ...

. Here he met

with whom he studied the properties of heavy water between 1932 and 1935. Returning home he taught a course titled Processes and Devices in

Chemical Industry The chemical industry comprises the companies that produce industrial chemicals. Central to the modern world economy, it converts raw materials (oil, natural gas, air, water, metals, and minerals) into more than 70,000 different products. The ...

forerunner of chemical engineering courses in

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

Collaboration with the professor Costin Nenitescu

Emilian Bratu and

Costin Nenițescu Costin D. Neniţescu in some scientific publication written as ''Nenitzescu'' (; 15 July 1902 – 28 July 1970) was a prominent Romanian chemist, and a professor at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest. He was a member of the Romanian Academy, ...

were two senior professors of the Faculty of Industrial Chemistry. The two scholars were good friends who have been deeply respected in the course of their life. Both of them, having German education, have early intuited the necessity of introducing in Romania the

Chemical Engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials int ...

discipline for higher polytechnic education, starting from the favorable external prospects related to the development of the chemical industry based on national raw material reserves. They fought together to assert chemistry in Polytechnics, and largely thanks to their effort, in 1938 the "Industrial Chemistry" name for Polytechnics faculty was introduced. Thus, in 1940–1950, Prof.

supported the effort Prof. Emilian Bratu for establishing and consolidating of the Department of Processes and Apparatus in

, later it became the Department of Chemical Engineering, being the first such chair in the country and among the first in Europe. On the other hand, in the early fiftieth, Prof. Emilian Bratu accepted the request of Prof.

to give a lecture on the progress of chemical engineering, especially in the field of application of chemical similarity in the chemical reactions. The lecture was given to the teaching staff and research collaborators in the field of

Organic Chemistry Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain carbon atoms.Clayden, J.; ...

. On the whole, the lecture was a rousing interest.

Notes

External links

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Chemical Engineering Department

TU Wien
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bratu, Emilian 1904 births 1991 deaths Engineers from Bucharest Politehnica University of Bucharest alumni Romanian chemical engineers Titular members of the Romanian Academy