Winkler, Clemens Alexander

Winkler, Clemens Alexander (1838-1904) German chemist who discovered germanium, one of the elements predicted by Dmitry Mendeleyev on the basis of the periodic table. Germanium became well known when the physicists William Shockley, Walter Brattain, and John Bardeen used it to make a point contact rectifier and then the first transistor. 

Clemens Alexander Winkler" 1838-1904. Professor of chemistry at the Freiberg School of Mines Pioneer in the analysis of gases. Manufacturer of nickel and cobalt He discovered the element germanium and made pioneer researches on indium... 

Clemens Alexander Winkler was bom at Freiberg on December 26, 1838, but grew up in Zschopenthal, a village in the Saxon Erzgebirge where his father, Kurt Alexander Winkler, operated a smalt works. Kurt Winkler was himself a well-known chemist and metallurgist, who had studied under Berzelius and N. G. Sefstrom, and had fitted up an excellent metallurgical laboratory in the smalt works (7, 30). 

A German chemist, Clemens Alexander Winkler, discovered Mendeleev s predicted element eka-silicon in 1886 and named it germanium, for Germany. 

Finally, in 1886, a German chemist, Clemens Alexander Winkler (1838-1904), analyzing a silver ore, found that all the known elements it contained amounted to only 93 per cent of its weight. Tracking down the remaining 7 per cent, he found a new element he called germanium (for Germany). This turned out to be Mendeleev s eka-silicon. 

Clemens Alexander Winkler (Freiberg, 26 December 1838-Dresden, 8 or 10 October 1904) was (1873) professor in the Mining Academy in Freiberg. Besides discovering germanium he worked out the contact process for sulphuric acid for the Badische Co. (see p. 903). 

Property Eka-silicon" Es) predicted in 1871 hy Mendeleev Reported in 1886 by Clemens Alexander Winkler Currently accepted... 

The demand for such stronger acid had been small, until the emergence of the dyestuffs industry in the 1870 s. Then, Rudolf Messel (1848 - 1920) in London, and Clemens Alexander Winkler (1838 - 1904) in Freiberg, worked on the process. A key part of their invention was the use of powdered platinum as the catalyst. The German-bom Messel had been a chemist in the firm Squire, Chapman, and Company from 1875 to 1878. The improved, yet still flawed, technology was first installed at their sulfuric acid plant at Silvertown in 1876. In 1878, Messel became a partner in the renamed firm Spencer, Chapman and Messel, where he was Managing Director until 1916. In 1875, developments by Winkler had led to another Contact plant to be opened in Frieberg. While the new plants were competitive versus the expensive Nordhausen acid, the process was still costly and difficult to operate. Impurities in the system, especially arsenic, poisoned the catalyst. Except for a few special cases, the Contact process was still only a technical curiosity. 

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