Home > August Wilhelm von Hofmann

Hofmann was born at Giessen. Not intending originally to devote himself to physical science, he first took up the study of law and philology at Göttingen, and the general culture he thus gained stood him in good stead when he turned to chemistry, the study of which he began under Justus von Liebig. When, in 1845, a school of practical chemistry was started in London, under the style of the Royal College of Chemistry , Hofmann, largely through the influence of the Prince Consort, was appointed its first director. It was with some natural hesitation that he, then a Privatdozent at BonnBonn is a city in Germany (Population (2002 est): 310 930), in the Bundesland of North Rhine-Westphalia, located ca. 20 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine. It was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990. The history of the city dates bac, accepted the position, which may well have seemed rather a precarious one; but the difficulty was removed by his appointment as extraordinary professor at Bonn, with leave of absence for two years, so that he could resume his career in Germany if his English one proved unsatisfactory. Fortunately the college was more or less successful, owing largely to his enthusiasm and energy, and many of the men who were trained there subsequently made their mark in chemical history. But in 1864 he returned to Bonn, and in the succeeding year he was selected to succeed E. Mitscherlich as professor of chemistry and director of the laboratory in Berlin University.

Hofmann's work covered a wide range of organic chemistry though with inorganic bodies he did but little. His first research, carried out in Liebig's laboratory at Giessen, was on coal-tar and his investigation of the organic bases in coal-gasCoal-gas is the gaseous by-product of the partial combustion of coal to make coke. The liquid by-product produced by this process is known as coal-tar. The gas was a mixture of hydrogen and methane, with small amounts of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide naphtht established the nature of anilineAniline phenylamine or aminobenzene is an organic chemical compound which is a primary aromatic amine consisting of a benzene ring and an amino group. The chemical structure of aniline is shown at the right. It is a liquid at room temperature. Synthesis A. This substance he used t refer to as his first love, and it was a love to which he remainec faithful throughout his life. his perception of the analogy between it and ammoniaAmmonia is a chemical compound with the formula. The molecule is not flat, but has the shape of a flattened tetrahedron known as a trigonal pyramid''. In solution it forms the positively charged ammonium ion , which has the shape of a regular tetrahedron. led to his famous work on the amines and ammonium bases and the allied organic phosphorusPhosphorus is the chemical element in the periodic table that has the symbol P and atomic number 15. A multivalent, nonmetal of the nitrogen group, phosphorus is commonly found in inorganic phosphate rocks and in all living cells but is never naturally fo compounds while his researches on rosaniline, which he first prepared. It formed the first of a series of investigations on coloring matter which only ended with quinoline red in 1887.

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. 1911 Britannica