Joseph Joshua Weiss (J J Weiss) (30 August 1905 – 9 April 1972) was a Jewish-Austrian chemist and Professor at the

Newcastle University Newcastle University (legally the University of Newcastle upon Tyne) is a UK public university, public research university based in Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England. It has overseas campuses in Singapore and Malaysia. The university is ...

. He was a pioneer in the field of

radiation chemistry Radiation chemistry is a subdivision of nuclear chemistry which is the study of the chemical effects of radiation on matter; this is very different from radiochemistry as no radioactivity needs to be present in the material which is being chemically ...

and

photochemistry Photochemistry is the branch of chemistry concerned with the chemical effects of light. Generally, this term is used to describe a chemical reaction caused by absorption of ultraviolet (wavelength from 100 to 400 nm), visible light (400–7 ...

. Weiss was born in 1905 in

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. He had obtained a Dipl.Ing. degree in the

Technische Hochschule A ''Technische Hochschule'' (, plural: ''Technische Hochschulen'', abbreviated ''TH'') is a type of university focusing on engineering sciences in Germany. Previously, it also existed in Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands (), and Finland (, ). ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. He entered the Textile Institute at Sorau in 1928 and was the head of the chemistry department there. He left his post two years later to become an assistant to the German chemist

Fritz Haber Fritz Haber (; 9 December 186829 January 1934) was a German chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber–Bosch process, a method used in industry to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydrogen ...

at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Elektrochemistry in Berlin. Together they discovered the

Haber–Weiss reaction The Haber–Weiss reaction generates •OH (hydroxyl radicals) from H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide) and superoxide (•O2−) catalyzed by iron ions. It was first proposed by Fritz Haber and his student Joseph Joshua Weiss in 1932. This reaction has long ...

. He fled with Haber (who was born Jewish) from Nazi Germany to Cambridge in 1933. He later moved to

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

, where he got his PhD in 1935 from Prof Frederick George Donnan.Dan Meisel Chemistry Genealogy
in 1937 he started teaching at the King's College in Durham, which later became the

. In the thirties, Weiss published several of his ideas on

electron transfer Electron transfer (ET) occurs when an electron relocates from an atom or molecule to another such chemical entity. ET is a mechanistic description of certain kinds of redox reactions involving transfer of electrons. Electrochemical processes ar ...

processes in the mechanisms of thermal and photochemical reactions in solution. In 1942 he married Frances Sonia Lawson, whom he would go on to have two sons and a daughter with. In 1956 he was appointed a professor of

Radiation Chemistry Radiation chemistry is a subdivision of nuclear chemistry which is the study of the chemical effects of radiation on matter; this is very different from radiochemistry as no radioactivity needs to be present in the material which is being chemically ...

at the

. In 1968 he received an honorary degree from the

Technical University of Berlin The Technical University of Berlin (official name both in English and german: link=no, Technische Universität Berlin, also known as TU Berlin and Berlin Institute of Technology) is a public research university located in Berlin, Germany. It was ...

. In 1970 he received the

Marie Curie Medal The Marie Curie-Skłodowska Medal is a Polish annual science award conferred by the Polish Chemical Society (''Polskie Towarzystwo Chemiczne, PTCHEM'') to scientists working permanently abroad for contributions in the field of chemistry. Descrip ...

of the Curie Institute, and officially retired from his chair at Newcastle. In 1972 the Association for Radiation Research established the Weiss Medal, named after him.

References

External links

Professor J. J. Weiss, 1905-1972
''International Journal of Radiation Biology'', Volume 22, Issue 4 October 1972, pages 311–312. Prof George Scholes.

at the Association for Radiation Research website {{DEFAULTSORT:Weiss, Joseph Joshua 1905 births 1972 deaths Austrian physical chemists Austrian emigrants to the United Kingdom Academics of Newcastle University Jewish scientists Austrian Jews British people of Austrian-Jewish descent British physical chemists Photochemistry TU Wien alumni Alumni of University College London

See also

References

External links