Walter Julius Reppe

---

JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION

WALTER JULIUS REPPE RALPH E. OESPER University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio

THE

disclosure of what has come to be known as Keppe chemistry created quite a sensation among American organic chemists, hut not many of them knox anything about the life and achievements of the founder of this acetylene high-pressure chemistry. Walter Julius Reppe was born on July 29, 1892, at Goringen, Kreis Eisenach, Thuringia. He studied mathematics, physics, and chemistry a t Jena, and then a t Munich where he received the Ph.D. degree on December 10, 1920. The following spring he entered the employ of the Badische Anilin und Sodafabrik a t Ludwigshafen. After the usual training period with azo

dyes and dyestuff intermediates, he was assigned the problem of producing borneol from turpentine for the synthesis of camphor, and worked out a process which he carried through the semitechnical scale. I n 1923 he was transferred to the indigo laboratory, and in addition to problems concerning dyes and low-temperature tar he worked mainly with the catalytic preparation of prussic acid from formamide, which he developed t o the technical stage. His ten years of activity in the indigo, solvent, and artificial material division, of which he later was the deputy head, resulted in a great (continued on page 665)

DECEMBER. 1950

WALTER JULIUS REPPE (continued from p a p 848)

r

number of technical processes, all characterized by fundamentally novel technical procedures. The most, important were: the hydrogenation of acetaldehyde to ethanol, of crotonaldehyde to butanol and butyraldehyde; the catalytic preparation of ethyl- and butylamines from acetaldehyde; the synbhesis of acrylic ester from ethylene, as well as the preparation of butadiene by the classic fom-step process. Procedures for producing ethylene by cracking of oils and by hydrogenation of acetylene w r e followed by the entire ethylene chemistry, namely ethylene chlorohydrin (new tower process), eth.vlene oxide, glycols, glycol ether, etc. In 1931 Dr. Reppe n.as made head of the newly created intermediate products and synthetic materials laboratory; in 1937 he was appointed Prokurist, and in I939 became a rlitertor of t,he I. G. Farhenindustrie

Aktiengesellschsft. The direction of the main laboratory was entrusted to him in 1938, and the entire research program a t the 1,ndvigshafen-Oppau works was put under his charge in 1949. His first experiments with acetylene under pressure, which formed the basis of Reppe chemistry, date from around 1928. This new domain of organic procedures embodies a large numher of fundamental syntheses which, starting from the simplest, building stones, make possible the production of homologous classes of compounds, which hitherto mere not, accessible or were only so with extreme difficulty. They, together with their subsequent, products, span a wide domain of organic chemistry. The concurrent use of new types of catalysts resulted in a host of new reaction possibilities, which Reppe grouped in four main categories: (a) uinylalion, (continued on p a p fX8)

JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION

WALTER m L t u s REPPE (runthued from page 8.53)

(b) ethinylalion, (c) cyclzzation, (d) carbonylation. These may be illustrated by the following examples: (a) the preparation of vinyl ethers from alcohols, phenols, naphthols, etc., and acetylene; (b) the synthesis of butynediol from technical formaldehyde and acetylene, which represents not only a valuable new method for butadiene, but in addition provided the key reaction for an unforeseeable number of products for all fields of application; (c) the cyclisation of acetylene to cyclooctatetrene; (d) the preparation of acrylic ester directly from carbon monoxide, acetylene, and alcohols. The working out of techniques for safe handling of acetylene under high pressures is certainly one of the greatest advances in modem chemical technology. Of no less importance than his scientific achievements

are his studies of the translation of laboratory findings to the pilot plant and when necessary to full factory scales. It is a particularly happy circumstance that Dr. Reppe combines within himself the scientist skilled in dealing with problems in a small painstaking way, and the technologist, long-range planner, and developer of full-scale chemical industry. Honorary doctorates have been conferred on him by the Technische Hochschule in Munich and the University-of Heidelberg. He holds the Adolf von Baeyer medal of the German Chemical Society and the Gauss medal of the Braunschweigische Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft. He is a, member of the Kaiserliche Leopoldiuisch-Carolinisch Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher zu Halle.

-