The universal chemist

Adolph Frank

Chemist and Entrepreneur

Co-inventor of calcium cyanamide synthesis and one of the founders of the Cyanidgesellschaft, which became Bayrische Stickstoffwerke AG's subsidiary SKW Trostberg AG in 1939.

* 1834, Kloetze
† 1916, Berlin

After starting an apprenticeship as a druggist, Adolf Frank, who came from a merchant family, went to Berlin in 1854 to study chemistry and technology. After passing his final druggist examinations in 1857, Frank gained his doctorate in Göttingen in 1861. Meanwhile he was already working at the Stassfurt beet sugar factory Bennecke, Hecher & Co., having filed the first of his many patents in 1858.

From then on Frank worked on artificial fertilization, concentrating on the use of potassium salts in agriculture. In 1867 he took over the management of a glassworks in Charlottenburg, but remained committed throughout his life to the development of the potassium industry in Germany, investigating, for example, methods of obtaining natural well salts.

After leaving the glass industry in 1885, Frank worked mainly in the acetylene industry. His growing involvement with calcium carbide in 1895 led to the Frank-Caro patent in partnership with Nikodem Caro. This work related to the bonding of nitrogen from the air with carbide in alkaline earths. The processes based on this patent formed the basis of the calcium cyanamide fertilizer industry. In partnership with Nikodem Caro, Dr. F. Rothe, Deutsche Bank, Siemens & Halske and the Deutsche Gold- und Silber-Scheideanstalt formerly Roessler in Frankfurt, Frank founded the Cyanamidgesellschaft mbH in 1899. It subsequently acquired Bayerische Stickstoff-Werke AG (BStW) in Trostberg, which became Süddeutsche Kalkstickstoffwerke, SKW for short, in 1939.

Adolph Frank, a man who in many respects could be described as a universal scientist, also worked with Carl von Linde on methods for obtaining hydrogen for airship travel, and for producing sulfuric acid and ammonia.