Ludwig Wolff (27 September 1857 – 24 February 1919), born in Neustadt in Palatinate, was a German

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe t ...

. He studied chemistry at the

University of Strasbourg The University of Strasbourg (french: Université de Strasbourg, Unistra) is a public research university located in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, with over 52,000 students and 3,300 researchers. The French university traces its history to the ea ...

, where he received his Ph.D. from Rudolph Fittig in 1882. He became Professor of

analytical chemistry Analytical chemistry studies and uses instruments and methods to separate, identify, and quantify matter. In practice, separation, identification or quantification may constitute the entire analysis or be combined with another method. Separati ...

at the

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 ...

in 1891 and held this position till his death in 1919. In 1911 he published a new reaction now known as the Wolff-Kishner reduction. His name is also associated with the chemical reaction known as the

Wolff rearrangement The Wolff rearrangement is a reaction in organic chemistry in which an α-diazocarbonyl compound is converted into a ketene by loss of dinitrogen with accompanying 1,2-rearrangement. The Wolff rearrangement yields a ketene as an intermediate produ ...

(1912).

References

1857 births 1919 deaths 19th-century German chemists People from the Rhine Province University of Strasbourg alumni University of Jena faculty People from Neustadt an der Weinstraße 20th-century German chemists {{Germany-chemist-stub