Franz Hein (30 June 1892 – 26 February 1976) was a German scientist and artist.

History

Franz Hein was born in

Grötzingen Grötzingen is a town and eastern suburb of Karlsruhe, Germany. On 31 December 2020 it had a population of 9,156. It contains Augustenburg Castle, a church. Pfinztal lies just to the southeast. See also *Grötzingen Jewish Cemetery Grötzinge ...

(Baden), Germany. His high school years were spent in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

, as well as, his college years at the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...

. Hein completed his Ph.D. in 1917 on optical studies of

bismuth Bismuth is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Bi and atomic number 83. It is a post-transition metal and one of the pnictogens, with chemical properties resembling its lighter group 15 siblings arsenic and antimony. Elemental ...

and

triphenylmethane Triphenylmethane, or triphenyl methane, is the hydrocarbon with the formula (C6H5)3CH. This colorless solid is soluble in nonpolar organic solvents and not in water. Triphenylmethane is the basic skeleton of many synthetic dyes called triarylmetha ...

derivatives. Hein made ''Assistant'' at the University and in 1920 ''Oberassistent''. He continued working on his ''Habilitation'' becoming a professor in 1923. With the completion of his ''Habilitation'', Hein went to work on organometallic system electrochemistry. In 1933, Hein signed the ''

Vow of allegiance of the Professors of the German Universities and High-Schools to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialistic State Bekenntnis der Professoren an den Universitäten und Hochschulen zu Adolf Hitler und dem nationalsozialistischen Staat officially translated into English as the Vow of allegiance of the Professors of the German Universities and High-Schools to Ad ...

''. From 1941 to 1965, Hein worked on main-group-metal derivatives of metal carbonyls. After 1942, he moved from Leipzig to the

Friedrich Schiller University of Jena The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (german: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany. The un ...

where he became the Director of the Institute for Inorganic Chemistry. War came in March 1945 and the University was destroyed. Hein came back to help rebuild towards the end of 1946. Until his retirement, he held a position as a chair in inorganic chemistry until 1959.

Phenylchromium compounds

With the reaction of anhydrous

chromium(III) chloride Chromium(III) chloride (also called chromic chloride) describes any of several chemical compounds with the formula CrCl3, where can be 0, 5, and 6. The anhydrous compound with the formula CrCl3 is a violet solid. The most common form of the tri ...

(CrCl₃) and

phenylmagnesium bromide Phenylmagnesium bromide, with the simplified formula , is a magnesium-containing organometallic compound. It is commercially available as a solution in diethyl ether or tetrahydrofuran (THF). Phenylmagnesium bromide is a Grignard reagent. It is o ...

(C₆H₅MgBr), Hein created a mixture of compounds. He was able to produce what he called phenylmagnesium salts. Hein denoted them as: (C₆H₅)₅CrX, (C₆H₅)₄CrX, and (C₆H₅)₃CrX.Oesper, R.E. ''J. Chem. Educ.'' 1953, 30, 315. However, it was later found that the correct structures were of

sandwich compound In organometallic chemistry, a sandwich compound is a chemical compound featuring a metal bound by haptic, covalent bonds to two arene (ring) ligands. The arenes have the formula , substituted derivatives (for example ) and heterocyclic deriv ...

type complexes and based on biphenyl not phenyl. The discovery of

ferrocene Ferrocene is an organometallic compound with the formula . The molecule is a complex consisting of two cyclopentadienyl rings bound to a central iron atom. It is an orange solid with a camphor-like odor, that sublimes above room temperature, a ...

and the research done by Zeiss, Tsutsui, and others lead to this structure determination.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hein, Franz 20th-century German chemists Scientists from Karlsruhe 1892 births 1976 deaths Members of the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin