Friedrich Bergius | Biography

Friedrich Bergius was an organic chemist who, as research director of the Goldschmidt Company in Essen, Germany, was able to develop two hydrogenation processes that were widely used in industry. These high-pressure methods enabled both Germany and England to have sufficient supplies of motor fuel during World War II. Bergius also developed high-pressure methods for breaking wood down into edible products, a process that was called "food from wood." For his work with these methods, Bergius was awarded the 1931 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Friedrich Karl Rudolf Bergius was born October 11, 1884, in Goldschmieden, Germany (now part of Poland). His father, Heinrich Bergius, was the head of a local chemical factory and his mother, Marie Haase Bergius, was the daughter of a classics professor. At a young age Bergius observed the chemical processes in his father's factory. In addition, his father sent him to study metallurgy at a factory in the Ruhr valley, an area known for its heavy industry.

Bergius began his formal training in chemistry at the University of Breslau in 1903 under Albert Ladenburg and Richard Abegg. He conducted some doctoral research under Arthur Hantzsch at the University of Leipzig and completed his research under Abegg on concentrated sulfuric acid as a solvent. He was awarded his doctorate from the University of Breslau in 1907.

For several years after receiving his doctorate, Bergius worked with Walther Nernst in Berlin and Fritz Haber in Karlsruhe to develop a way of making ammonia from hydrogen and atmospheric nitrogen. By 1909 Bergius was working with Ernest Bodenstein at his chemical laboratory in Hanover. Under Bodenstein, Bergius used pressure as high as 300 atmospheres (one atmosphere equals 14.7 pounds per square inch) to study the breakdown of calcium peroxides. It was during these apprentice years that Bergius developed leakproof high-pressure apparatus that enabled him to extend his research into other areas. In order to advance his research in more than one area, Bergius established his own laboratory in Hanover. He used high-pressure techniques to transform heavy oils and oil residues into lighter oils. This procedure boosted gasoline output, of great interest at the time since the automobile was becoming the preferred form of transportation. In 1913 he was granted a patent for the manufacture of liquid hydrocarbons (compounds containing carbon and hydrogen) from coal. During this time Bergius was also teaching physical and industrial chemistry at a university in Hanover.

In addition to his position as research director for the Goldschmidt Company in Essen from 1914 to 1945, Bergius was instrumental in the construction of a plant at Rheinau to facilitate the development of coal-hydrogenation processes on a large scale. When the demand for gasoline decreased after World War I, however, this project was neglected until 1921. After selling his patent rights to German and foreign companies, Bergius was able to develop new equipment to process the coal hydrogenation. Previously, equipment had only been able to use high-pressure methods with gases.

Although he was able to improve the process of coal hydrogenation in numerous ways during the years between 1922 and 1925, it never became economically feasible. In 1926 he sold his patents to Badische Anilin-und Sodafabrik (BASF), a large German chemical company, which later joined other German chemical companies to form I. G. Farben. Farben expanded hydrogenation research, improved Bergius's processes, and increased the yield of gasoline from coal. Two years later Farben built a plant to produce oil from coal.

Another of Bergius's research projects was to produce sugar from wood and convert it into alcohol, yeast, and dextrose. He hoped to do this by using concentrated hydrochloric acid and water to promote the breakdown of wood cellulose. This work proved valuable to Germany during World War II, because it furnished a great deal of the carbohydrate material that was needed during food shortages.

Both of Bergius's lifetime interests, the hydrogenation of coal into gasoline and the hydrogenation of wood into food products, became widely used commercially and industrially. In 1931 he shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry with Karl Bosch, who had continued Bergius's work after he sold his patents to BASF. During the presentation of the award at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the presenter called Bergius's high-pressure methods an extraordinary improvement in the field of chemical technology.

Through the 1930s and the 1940s, Bergius continued his research on the hydrolysis (the breakdown of a substance using water) of wood. The plant he established in Rheinau in 1943 provided basic products that Germany needed during World War II. After the war, Bergius left Germany and lived briefly in Austria. For a time he lived in Madrid, where he founded a company at the invitation of the Spanish government. From 1946 to 1949 he was a technical research adviser to the government of Argentina in its ministry of industries.

Besides the Nobel Prize, Bergius was awarded the Liebig Medal of the German Chemical Society and received honorary degrees from the University of Heidelberg and the University of Hanover. He also contributed many articles to newspapers and to scientific and technical magazines and was a member of the American Chemical Society and the Verein Deutscher Chemiker. He died in Buenos Aires on March 30, 1949.