Walter Rüdorff

Walter Rüdorff (October 3, 1909 – April 1, 1989) was a German chemist known for his research on clathrates of graphite[1] and ternary oxides.[2][3]

Education and career

Rüdorff was born in Berlin in 1909. He studied chemistry as an undergraduate at Technische Hochschule Berlin (now Technische Universität Berlin) and graduated in 1925. His graduate study was carried out under the supervision of Ulrich Hofmann at the same university, where he graduated with a PhD thesis titled Über die Kristallstruktur der Hexacarbonyle von Chrom, Molybdän und Wolfram. He then moved to the University of Rostock along with Ulrich Hofmann and achieved his habilitation status with the thesis titled Neuartige Verbindungen mit Graphit in 1941. In 1942, Rüdorff moved to TU Wien following Ulrich Hofmann. He later took up a faculty position at University of Tübingen in 1947. He stayed in Tübingen until his retirement.[3]

Along with his supervisor Ulrich Hofmann and his father Karl Andreas Hofmann, Rüdorff cowrote the famous textbook on inorganic chemistry[4] that are referred to as Rüdorff-Hofmann.[3]

Scientific research

Rüdorff and Ulrich Hofmann's work on graphite intercalation compound and sulfuric acid[5] became an ancestor of lithium-ion battery.[6]

Rüdorff's team discovered the ternary oxide series (including LiVO₂ and NaVO₂) in 1954 [7] with a unique structure. The compounds with the same structural type are called rudorffites for this reason.[8]

Rüdorff's work in 1965 on hosting lithium in titanium disulfide (TiS₂) inspired early efforts into using metal chalcogenides as battery cathode material.[9]

See also

• Ulrich Hofmann

References

1. Rüdorff, W. (1959), Graphite Intercalation Compounds, Advances in Inorganic Chemistry and Radiochemistry, vol. 1, Elsevier, pp. 223–266, doi:10.1016/s0065-2792(08)60255-1, ISBN 978-0-12-023601-5, retrieved 2022-06-02
2. Rienäcker, Günther; Goubeau, Josef; Schäfer, Harald (1969). "Professor Walter Rüdorff". Zeitschrift für anorganische und allgemeine Chemie (in German). 369 (3–6): 114–116. doi:10.1002/zaac.19693690302. ISSN 0044-2313.
3. Werner, Helmut (2017-01-11). Geschichte der anorganischen Chemie: Die Entwicklung einer Wissenschaft in Deutschland von Döbereiner bis heute (in German) (1 ed.). Wiley. doi:10.1002/9783527693009.ch42. ISBN 978-3-527-33887-0.
4. Hofmann, Karl A. (1973). Hofmann, Ulrich; Rüdorff, Walter (eds.). Anorganische Chemie. doi:10.1007/978-3-663-14240-9. ISBN 978-3-528-18221-2.
5. Rüdorff, W.; Hofmann, U. (1938-06-24). "Über Graphitsalze". Zeitschrift für anorganische und allgemeine Chemie. 238 (1): 1–50. doi:10.1002/zaac.19382380102.
6. Novotny, Jana; Quarthal, Dominik; Oetken, Marco (2020). "The ancestor of lithium‐ion batteries – a modified experiment of the historically significant Rüdorff‐Hofmann‐battery suitable for pupils". Chemkon. 27 (1): 39–43. doi:10.1002/ckon.201900037. ISSN 0944-5846. S2CID 240856106.
7. Rüdorff, Walter; Becker, Hans (1954-09-01). "Notizen: Die Strukturen von LiVO₂, NaVO₂, LiCrO₂ und NaCrO₂". Zeitschrift für Naturforschung B. 9 (9): 614–615. doi:10.1515/znb-1954-0911. ISSN 1865-7117. S2CID 93949749.
8. Turkevych, Ivan; Kazaoui, Said; Ito, Eisuke; Urano, Toshiyuki; Yamada, Koji; Tomiyasu, Hiroshi; Yamagishi, Hideo; Kondo, Michio; Aramaki, Shinji (2017-10-09). "Photovoltaic Rudorffites: Lead-Free Silver Bismuth Halides Alternative to Hybrid Lead Halide Perovskites". ChemSusChem. 10 (19): 3754–3759. doi:10.1002/cssc.201700980. PMID 28660660.
9. Xie, Jing; Lu, Yi-Chun (2020-05-19). "A retrospective on lithium-ion batteries". Nature Communications. 11 (1): 2499. Bibcode:2020NatCo..11.2499X. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-16259-9. ISSN 2041-1723. PMC 7237495. PMID 32427837.