Traube, Moritz

As to catalytic reactions in homogeneous media, Moritz Traube found in his studies of the oxidation of hydrogen iodide by hydrogen peroxide in aqueous solution, that the catalyst ferrous sulfate is activated by copper sulfate (5). As to the magnitude of such effects, Price stated in 1898 (6) that the simultaneous action of iron and of copper compounds on the reaction between persulfate and hydrogen iodide causes an unexpected acceleration of the reaction, which is more than twice as great as the acceleration calculated as an additive effect of the two single catalysts. However, effects were also observed of the opposite kind,... 

Moritz Traube 4 rejected this explanation on the ground that carbon monoxide does not decompose steam at the temperature of the electric spark, for reaction (i) is reversible and under these conditions proceeds m the direction right to left. 

Among the many colloidal materials he studied was copper-ferrocyanide, which is formed as a gelatinous precipitate when copper sulfate is mixed with K ferrocyanide. The semipermeable properties of a membrane made of copper-ferrocyanide gel was discovered by Moritz Traube, who proposed the atomic sieve theory to explain semipermeability. Osmotic studies of Wilhelm Pfeifer provided the foundation for van t HofTs law of osmosis ... 

The theory that fermentation is brought about by unorganised ferments (enzymes) elaborated in living organisms was confirmed by Moritz Traube (Ratibor, 12 February 1826-Berlin, 28 June 1894), a pupil of Liebig and D.Phil. Berlin. Traube reluctantly abandoned an academic career to take over, as a filial duty, the family wine merchant s business in Ratibor, which gave him little time for scientific research. Beside his work on fermentation he published on osmosis (see p. 652), on respiration, and on oxidation and autoxi-dation (see p. 193). ... 

Osmosis, or the net transfer of solvent from a dilute to a more concentrated solution across a suitable membrane, had been known since 1748 when the Abbe Jean Antoine Nollet (1700-1770) noticed that a pig s bladder covering a container of alcoholic solution was ruptured when immersed in water. The phenomenon of osmosis could only be studied properly when sufficiently strong membranes could be produced to withstand the pressure generated. It was Moritz Traube (1826-1894) who discovered in 1867 that a strong membrane could be prepared by precipitating copper ferrocyanide in the walls of a porous pot. He was able to show that for a given solution osmosis occurred until a certain pressure was reached, which is called the osmotic pressure of the solution. In 1877 the German botanist... 

---