Ernst Otto Fischer (; 10 November 1918 – 23 July 2007) was a German chemist who won the Nobel Prize for pioneering work in the area of organometallic chemistry.

Early life

He was born in Solln, a borough of

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

. His parents were Karl T. Fischer, Professor of Physics at the

Technical University of Munich The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; german: Technische Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied and natural sciences. Establis ...

(TU), and Valentine née Danzer. He graduated in 1937 with ''Abitur''. Before the completion of two years'

compulsory military service Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day un ...

, the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

broke out, and he served in Poland, France, and Russia. During a period of study leave, towards the end of 1941 he began to study chemistry at the

. Following the end of the War, he was released by the Americans in the autumn of 1945 and resumed his studies.

Training

Fischer graduated from TUM in 1949. He then started his doctoral thesis as an assistant to Professor

Walter Hieber Walter Hieber (18 December 1895 – 29 November 1976) was an inorganic chemist, known as the father of metal carbonyl chemistry. He was born 18 December 1895 and died 29 November 1976. Hieber's father was Johannes Hieber, an influential evangel ...

in the Inorganic Chemistry Institute, His thesis was entitled "The Mechanisms of Carbon Monoxide Reactions of Nickel(II) Salts in the Presence of Dithionites and Sulfoxylates".

Research career

After receiving his doctorate in 1952, he remained at TU. He continued his research on the organometallic chemistry of the

transition metal In chemistry, a transition metal (or transition element) is a chemical element in the d-block of the periodic table (groups 3 to 12), though the elements of group 12 (and less often group 3) are sometimes excluded. They are the elements that ca ...

. He almost immediately challenged the structure for ferrocene as postulated by Pauson and Keally. Shortly thereafter, he published the structural data of ferrocene and the new complexes

nickelocene Nickelocene is the organonickel compound with the formula Ni( ''η''5-C5H5)2. Also known as bis(cyclopentadienyl)nickel or NiCp2, this bright green paramagnetic solid is of enduring academic interest, although it does not yet have any known prac ...

and

cobaltocene Cobaltocene, known also as bis(cyclopentadienyl)cobalt(II) or even "bis Cp cobalt", is an organocobalt compound with the formula Co(C5H5)2. It is a dark purple solid that sublimes readily slightly above room temperature. Cobaltocene was discovere ...

. Near the same time, he focused also on the then baffling chemistry resulting from Hein's reactions of chromium(III) chloride with phenylmagnesium bromide. This effort resulted in his isolation of

bis(benzene)chromium Bis(benzene)chromium is the organometallic compound with the formula Cr( η6-C6H6)2. It is sometimes called dibenzenechromium. The compound played an important role in the development of sandwich compounds in organometallic chemistry and is th ...

, foretelling an entirely new class of sandwich complexes.

Professional advances and recognition

He was appointed a lecturer at the TU in 1955 and, in 1957, professor and then, in 1959, C4 professor. In 1964 he took the Chair of Inorganic Chemistry at the TU. In 1964, he was elected a member of the Mathematics/Natural Science section of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. In 1969 he was appointed a member of the German Academy of Natural Scientists, Leopoldina and in 1972 was given an honorary doctorate by the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy of the University of Munich. He lectured across the world on metal complexes of cyclopentadienyl, indenyl, arenes, olefins, and metal carbonyls. In the 1960s his group discovered a metal alkylidene and alkylidyne complexes, since referred to as

Fischer carbene A Fischer carbene is a divalent organic ligand in an organometallic compound. In a Fischer carbene, the carbene ligand is a σ-donor π-acceptor ligand. Because π-backdonation from the metal centre is generally weak, the carbene carbon is electr ...

s and Fischer-

carbyne In organic chemistry, a carbyne is a general term for any compound whose structure consists of an electrically neutral carbon atom connected by a single covalent bond and has three non-bonded electrons. The carbon atom has either one or thre ...

s. Overall he published about 450 journal articles and he trained many PhD and postdoctoral students, many of whom went on to noteworthy careers. Among his many foreign lectureships, he was Firestone Lecturer at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...

(1969), visiting professor at the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

(1971), and

Arthur D. Little Arthur D. Little is an international management consulting firm originally headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, founded in 1886 and formally incorporated in 1909 by Arthur Dehon Little, an MIT chemist who had discovered acetate. ...

visiting professor at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

(1973). He has received many awards including, in 1973 with

Geoffrey Wilkinson Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson FRS (14 July 1921 – 26 September 1996) was a Nobel laureate English chemist who pioneered inorganic chemistry and homogeneous transition metal catalysis. Education and early life Wilkinson was born at Springside, Todm ...

, the

Nobel Prize in Chemistry ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then "M ...

for his work on

organometallic compound Organometallic chemistry is the study of organometallic compounds, chemical compounds containing at least one chemical bond between a carbon atom of an organic molecule and a metal, including alkali, alkaline earth, and transition metals, and s ...

Death

He died on 23 July 2007 in Munich.derStandard.at
/ref> At the time of his death, Fischer was the oldest living German Nobel laureate. He was succeeded by

Manfred Eigen Manfred Eigen (; 9 May 1927 – 6 February 2019) was a German biophysical chemist who won the 1967 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on measuring fast chemical reactions. Eigen's research helped solve major problems in physical chemistry and ...

, who shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1967 and is nine years younger than Fischer was.

References

*C. Elschenbroich, A. Salzer ”Organometallics : A Concise Introduction” (2nd Ed) (1992) from Wiley-VCH: Weinheim. * * *

External links

* including the Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1973 ''On the Road to Carbene and Carbyne Complexes'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Fischer, Ernst Otto 1918 births 2007 deaths Inorganic chemists 20th-century German chemists Nobel laureates in Chemistry German Nobel laureates Technical University of Munich alumni Technical University of Munich faculty Grand Crosses with Star and Sash of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Members of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities