Martin Freund (August 13, 1863 in

Nysa, Poland Nysa (german: Neisse or ''Neiße'', szl, Nysa) is a town in southwestern Poland on the Eastern Neisse ( Polish: ''Nysa Kłodzka'') river, situated in the Opole Voivodeship. With 43,849 inhabitants (2019), it is the capital of Nysa County. It ...

– March 13, 1920 in

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

) 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 ...

and Professor at the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main.

Life

Freund was born the son of a Jewish merchant. After graduating from the

Realgymnasium ''Gymnasium'' (; German plural: ''Gymnasien''), in the German education system, is the most advanced and highest of the three types of German secondary schools, the others being ''Hauptschule'' (lowest) and ''Realschule'' (middle). ''Gymnas ...

at the Zwinger in Breslau, he started to study chemistry at the

University of Breslau 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 States, th ...

and the

Humboldt University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative ...

in 1881. He received his

Doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''li ...

in 1884. (contribution to the knowledge of malonic acid). During his studies he became a member of the ''Akademischer Naturwissenschaftlicher Verein zu Breslau'' in 1881. He was assistant to Hermann Wichelhaus and lecture assistant to

August Wilhelm von Hofmann August Wilhelm von Hofmann (8 April 18185 May 1892) was a German chemist who made considerable contributions to organic chemistry. His research on aniline helped lay the basis of the aniline-dye industry, and his research on coal tar laid the g ...

. In 1888 he habilitated in Berlin and in 1895 joined the Physikalischer Verein in Frankfurt am Main as a lecturer, where he headed its chemical laboratory. From 1905 he was a lecturer at the Akademie für Sozial- und Handelswissenschaften (Academy for Social and Commercial Sciences). In 1914 he became full professor of chemistry at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the newly founded University of Frankfurt and director of the Chemical Institute. Freund was a confidant of

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 hydroge ...

, to whose wife he was related. At the Chemical Institute he maintained close ties with industry (e.g. the companies Cassella,

Degussa Evonik Industries AG is a stock-listed German specialty chemicals company headquartered in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the second largest chemicals company in Germany, and one of the largest specialty chemicals companies in the ...

, Hoechst,

Metallgesellschaft Metallgesellschaft AG was formerly one of Germany's largest industrial conglomerates based in Frankfurt. It had over 20,000 employees and revenues in excess of 10 billion US dollars. It had over 250 subsidiaries specializing in mining, specialty c ...

Work

Freund dealt with alkaloids and clarified the composition of, for example, narcotine and contributed to the clarification of the composition of codeine and

morphine Morphine is a strong opiate that is found naturally in opium, a dark brown resin in poppies (''Papaver somniferum''). It is mainly used as a pain medication, and is also commonly used recreationally, or to make other illicit opioids. T ...

. In 1910, he found a method of synthesising polycarboxylic acids via a Friedel-Crafts reaction of

malonic acid Malonic acid (IUPAC systematic name: propanedioic acid) is a dicarboxylic acid with structure CH2(COOH)2. The ionized form of malonic acid, as well as its esters and salts, are known as malonates. For example, diethyl malonate is malonic acid' ...

derivatives with

aromatic In chemistry, aromaticity is a chemical property of cyclic ( ring-shaped), ''typically'' planar (flat) molecular structures with pi bonds in resonance (those containing delocalized electrons) that gives increased stability compared to satur ...

Hydrocarbons. With Edmund Speyer, he first synthesised the

opioid Opioids are substances that act on opioid receptors to produce morphine-like effects. Medically they are primarily used for pain relief, including anesthesia. Other medical uses include suppression of diarrhea, replacement therapy for opioid use ...

oxycodone Oxycodone, sold under various brand names such as Roxicodone and OxyContin (which is the extended release form), is a strong, semi-synthetic opioid used medically for treatment of moderate to severe pain. It is highly addictive and a commonly ...

, which was subsequently marketed as the analgesic Eukodal by Merck.

Miscellaneous

The Letter acids (1-naphtylamine-3,5-disulfonic acid), a coupling component of dye chemistry, is incorrectly assigned to Martin Freund in the literature. However, the name goes back to a patent of Louis Freund (St. Ludwig, Upper Alsace) of 1883,Louis Freund, Verfahren zur Darstellung von Amidonaphtalindisulfosäuren und von Azofarbstoffen aus denselben
German Patent No. 27346 of 24 February 1883
it was transferred to BASF after registration.

Literature

*Entry in Winfried Pötsch, Annelore Fischer, Wolfgang Müller: Lexikon bedeutender Chemiker, Harri Deutsch 1989

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Freund, Martin 1863 births 1920 deaths German chemists Academic staff of Goethe University Frankfurt