RALPH E. OESPER University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio
AT
ITS general meeting in Cologne in 1951, the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker awarded its Alfred Stock Manorial Prize. The citation read: "To Professor Dr. rer. nat. Walter Hieber, director of the inorganic chemical laboratory of the Technical University in Munich, eminent investigator in the field of complex compounds, who with masterful command of the preparative methods and deep understanding of the theoretical problems has developed the domain of the carbonyl and nitrosyl compounds and obtained results valuable both to pure science and technology." Walter Otto Hieber was born at Stuttgart, capital of Wiirttemberg, on December 18, 1895.' Four years a t the University of Tiibingen (1914-18) culminated in the doctorate. The dissertation was prepared under the
' His father, Johann von Hieber, Ph.D.,
J.D. (h.c.), Agr. D.
(h.c.), served as Staatsprjtsident of t,hisGerman state.
guidance of Rudolf Weinland (1865-1936).2 At the University of Wiirzburg, where he was assistant to Otto Dimroth (1872-1940),3 Dr. Hieber habilitated as Privatdozent in 1924. The next year he went to the University of Jena as associate professor and head of the inorganic-analytical section and in 1926 he was called to the University of Heidelberg in the same capacity. In 1932 he accepted a teaching post at the Technical University of Stuttgart where he taught general, inorganic, and analytical chemistry and was advanced to the acting headship of this Institute, in 1933. In 1935 he was called to the Technical University of Munich as full professor of inorganic chemistry, general experimental chemistry, and analytical chemistry and For biographical details see HIEBER,W., Ber., 69,210 (1936). B., ibid., 73A,94 (1940); For biographical details see EMMERT, F., ibid., 74A,1 (1941). HARMS, a
MARCH. 1954
141
director of the inorganic chemical laboratory. His predecessor in this important post was Wilhelm Manchot, who likewise had a reputation as a student of nitrosyl and carbonyl compounds. Professor Hieber's researches deal mainly with comAmone the various categories he has ~ l e comoounds. x investigated are: cyclic molecular compounds; the romple& chemical behavior of oximes, aromatic diamines, and ethanolamines; heats of formation and the constitution of comulex metal halide com~ounds: the com~lexes of bivalent silver and auadrivalent nickel. Professor Hieber has been especially interested in the metal-carbon monoxide complexes, particularly the metal carbonyls, since 1927. fie and his collaborators have published more than the 80 papers, including 60 experimental studies, in this field, which previously had been investigated to only a comparatively small extent from the standpoint of modern ideas. The study of the reactions and investieation of derivatives of the metal carbonyls, especially the amine- and alcohol-substituted carbonyls, led to the discovery of the "metal carbonyl hydrides" of iron (1931) and soon thereafter t o those of cobalt. The elucidation of the "base reaction of iron pentacarbonyl" came in 1932. The nitrosyl-carbonyls of iron and cobalt were studied with the assistance of J. St. Anderson in 1932, and since 1940 Hieber and his school have greatly extended the field of nitric oxide complexes. He has systematically studied the pressure synthesis of metal carbonyls (from 1939 on). Through nev pressure syntheses of the carbon monoxide compounds of the metals of the iron and chromium groups, he has arrived at the discovery and preparation of new rarbonyls and carbonyl halides of the noble metals, i . e., rhodium, iridium, osmium, and particularly rhenium. More rerently (1950-52) substitution reactions with isonitriles have yielded nickel tetraisonitriles and
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isonitrile-substituted metal rarbonyls. These reactions have led to a new conception of the formation-mechanism and the structure of the %nine- and alcohol-bearing carbonyls. Methods of forming and producing carbonyls from nickel and rohalt salts under normal laboratory ronditions have been worked out.
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Walter Hieber
The metal carbonyl hydrides are no\v being chararteriaed, on the basis of their acidic nature and physirochemical behavior, from the standpoint of the presentday ideas of structure and valence. As a whole, the chemistry of carbon monoxide, like that of the nitric oxide complexes, has contributed in special measure to the refinement and deepening of our valence concepts and to the growth of the theory of coordination chemistry. Professor Hieher is a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. His n a x e appears on the masthead of the Zeitschrzjt fur anorganische und allgemeine Chemze.
