Georges Christian Peter Imbert (26 March 1884 – 6 February 1950) was a
French chemical
A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., wi ...
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...
and
inventor
An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...
. He became famous for the invention of the
wood gas generator
A wood gas generator is a gasification unit which converts timber or charcoal into wood gas, a producer gas consisting of atmospheric nitrogen, carbon monoxide, hydrogen, traces of methane, and other gases, which – after cooling and filtering ...
.
[''The Biofuels Handbook.'' Author: James G Speight. Royal Society of Chemistry, 2015, pg. 208, accessed 03 March 2021.]
Early life
On March 26, 1884 Imbert was born in
Niederstinzel
Niederstinzel is a commune in the Moselle department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. The similarly named commune Oberstinzel lies 8 km to the south.
See also
* Communes of the Moselle department
The following is a list of the 725 ...
, France, a small town about ten kilometers from
Sarre-Union
Sarre-Union () is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France.
It consists of two older towns that were unified on 16 June 1794. On the east bank of the river Sarre is the town of Bouquenom () and on the west bank ...
. He was the oldest of four children.
After primary school in
Diemeringen
Diemeringen () is a Communes of France, commune in the Bas-Rhin Departments of France, department in Grand Est in north-eastern France.
See also
* Communes of the Bas-Rhin department
References
Communes of Bas-Rhin
Bas-Rhin commune ...
, he attended
Sarreguemines
Sarreguemines (; German: ''Saargemünd'' , Lorraine Franconian: ''Saargemìnn'') is a commune in the Moselle department of the Grand Est administrative region in north-eastern France.
It is the seat of an arrondissement and a canton. As of t ...
High School. Because of his academic success, his father enrolled him at the School of Chemistry Mulhouse, which at that time was one of the most famous in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
. Three years later Imbert acquired a degree in chemical engineering; his interest in the subject led him to pursue his own research further.
At the age of 20 he filed his first
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
. Over the next ten years he developed various industrial processes and filed several additional patents for them.
In 1908 he opened a soap factory in Diemeringen where he applied many of the industrial processes he had patented. He also worked as a research scientist in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
.
From 1915 to 1918 Imbert was enlisted in the
German army
The German Army (, "army") is the land component of the armed forces of Germany. The present-day German Army was founded in 1955 as part of the newly formed West German ''Bundeswehr'' together with the ''Marine'' (German Navy) and the ''Luftwaf ...
where he worked as a chemist in the factory "Königswarter and Ebell" in Linden and in the factory "Pintsch" in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
.
After he was demobilized in 1918, Imbert produced soap at the mill in Diemeringen.
Invention of the wood gas generator
At the same time Georges Imbert embarked on experiments to transform
coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal is formed when dea ...
into liquid fuel. He even managed to make
synthetic gasoline, which unfortunately was too expensive. By then he had abandoned the liquid fuel solution and became interested in gas generators. In the early 1920s he created a generator that utilized
charcoal
Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, cal ...
.
In 1921 Imbert built a charcoal gasifier and two years later he succeeded in gasification for a vehicle.
In 1923, the
Army
An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...
, informed by
De Dietrich
The history of the de Dietrich family has been linked to that of France and of Europe for over three centuries.
To this day, the company that bears the family name continues to play a major role in the economic life of Alsace.
De Dietrich is a h ...
of the invention, asked Imbert to build a wood gasifier for the French government. Imbert set up his gas-fired plant (1925) at Sarre-Union, rue de Bitche, in a hat factory. De Dietrich, which had the industrial capacity in metallurgy and the automobile, set up a workshop for him at
Reichshoffen
Reichshoffen ( or ; ; Alsatian: ''Risshoffe'') is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. Église Saint-Michel de Reichshoffen was built in 1772.
Population
Politics and administration
List of mayors
...
. In 1925, he patented various processes on gas generators. De Dietrich, for their part also filed a patent on gasogens, which pushed Imbert to end this partnership in 1926.
After buying the "Chalet", a beautiful home in Sarre-Union, he created the Compagnie Générale des Gazogens Imbert in 1930.
Despite the enthusiasm of
André Maginot
André Maginot (; 17 February 1877 – 7 January 1932) was a French civil servant, soldier, and Member of Parliament. He is best known for his advocacy of the string of forts known as the Maginot Line.
Early years, to World War I
Maginot was ...
, Minister of War, the gasifier struggled to break through in France. In 1931, Georges Imbert was forced to sell some of his licenses to his representative in Germany.
In 1934, his brother Jean-Paul, tried to sell gasogen to the United States.
The success in Germany allowed Imbert to continue developing his technique in Sarre-Union. He was developing a gasifier that could use green wood without clogging the engine.
During the evacuation of Sarre-Union in May 1940, he moved with his family to Epinal in the Vosges. On his return in September of the same year, he returned to work by becoming an employee of his former company bought by "Imbert Köln".
The recognition of Georges Imbert's work in 1944 by all the European manufacturers marks the celebration of the life of the chemical engineer. The German press called him the "
pope
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
" of the gasifier. Germany used the wood gasifier in all military operations on tanks, armored cars and ammunition trucks.
End of life
Having lost a son on the
Russian front and feeling responsible, Imbert became an alcoholic.
In December 1944, Sarre-Union was released by the Americans. Georges Imbert was not imprisoned for working for the Germans. However, his property was sequestrated and sold as war damage in 1945. Imbert lost interest in everything and died a few years later, in 1950, at the age of 65.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Imbert, Georges
1884 births
1950 deaths
20th-century French inventors
French chemical engineers
Place of birth missing