Friedrich Bergius
Bergius, Friedrich (1884-1949), a German chemist, devised high-pressure processes to create and improve products for industrial applications.
Out of Bergius's studies came a method to transform heavy oils into lighter oils (and ultimately into gasoline). He also was able to convert wood to produce food products, such as sugar, which in turn could be transformed into alcohol or yeast, in a process that became known as “food from wood.” For originating and developing chemical high-pressure methods, Bergius shared the 1931 Nobel Prize in chemistry with Carl Bosch .
As a young child, Bergius observed the industrial processes at his father's chemical factory. After completing secondary school, he studied metallurgy at a factory in the Ruhr Valley for six months. In 1903, he enrolled at the University of Breslau and received a doctorate degree four-years later. As part of his postdoctoral research, he began to work with high-pressure methods. He continued investigating high-pressure methods at a chemical laboratory in Hannover. During this time, he also taught physical and industrial chemistry at a university in Hannover. To advance his experiments, he developed a leakproof high-pressure apparatus.
Bergius soon outgrew his laboratory space at the university and used his family's money to finance a private laboratory in Hannover. He studied the effect of high pressure and high temperature on the conversion of wood into coal and soon learned how to develop a coal very similar to that in nature. His research on the manufacture of liquid hydrocarbons from coal yielded a patent. He sold his patent rights in 1925 to a company that eventually became I. G. Farben. From 1914 to 1945, Bergius worked as research director at Goldschmidt Company in Essen. After World War 11 (1939-1945), he operated a chemical company in Spain before moving to Argentina to serve as science consultant in its ministry of industries.
Bergius and his wife, Ottilie, had two sons and one daughter.