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Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe (27 September 1818 – 25 November 1884) was a German chemist and academic, and a major contributor to the birth of modern organic chemistry. He was a professor at Marburg and Leipzig. Kolbe was the first to apply the term synthesis in a chemical context, and contributed to the philosophical demise of vitalism through synthesis of the organic chemical acetic acid from carbon disulfide, and also contributed to the development of structural theory. This was done via modifications to the idea of "radicals" and accurate prediction of the existence of secondary and tertiary alcohols, and to the emerging array of organic reactions through his Kolbe electrolysis of carboxylate salts, the Kolbe-Schmitt reaction in the preparation of aspirin and the Kolbe nitrile synthesis. After studies with Wöhler and Robert Bunsen, Kolbe was involved with the early internationalization of chemistry through work in London (with Edward Frankland). He was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and won the Royal Society of London's Davy Medal in the year of his death. Despite these accomplishments and his training important members of the next generation of chemists (including Zaitsev, Theodor Curtius, Beckmann, Carl Graebe, Markovnikov, and others), Kolbe is best remembered for editing the Journal für Praktische Chemie for more than a decade, in which his vituperative essays on Kekulé's structure of benzene, van't Hoff's theory on the origin of chirality and Baeyer's reforms of nomenclature were personally critical and linguistically violent. Kolbe died of a heart attack in Leipzig at age 66, six years after the death of his wife, Charlotte.
In 1842, he became an assistant to Robert Bunsen at the Philipps-Universität Marburg. He took his doctoral degree in 1843 at the same university. A new opportunity arose in 1845, when he became assistant to Lyon Playfair at the new Museum of Economic Geology in London and a close friend of Edward Frankland. From 1847, he was engaged in editing the Handwörterbuch der reinen und angewandten Chemie ( Dictionary of Pure and Applied Chemistry) edited by Justus von Liebig, Wöhler, and Johann Christian Poggendorff, and he also wrote an important textbook. In 1851, Kolbe succeeded Bunsen as professor of chemistry at Marburg and, in 1865, he was called to the Universität Leipzig. In 1864, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1874.
In 1853, he married Charlotte, the daughter of General-Major Wilhelm von Bardeleben. His wife died in 1876 after 23 years of happy marriage. They had four children.
In particular, Kolbe developed procedures for the electrolysis of the salts of fatty acid and other (Kolbe electrolysis) and prepared salicylic acid, a building block of aspirin in a process called Kolbe synthesis or Kolbe-Schmitt reaction. His method for the synthesis of nitriles is called the Kolbe nitrile synthesis, Electrochemical Dictionary and with Edward Frankland he found that can be hydrolyzed to the corresponding acids. In addition to his own bench research and scholarly and editorial work, Kolbe oversaw student research at Leipzig and especially at Marburg; students spending time under his tutelage included Peter Griess, Aleksandr Mikhailovich Zaitsev (known for Zaitsev's rule predicting the product composition of elimination reactions), Theodor Curtius (discoverer of diazo compounds, , and the Curtius rearrangement), Ernst Otto Beckmann (discoverer of the Beckmann rearrangement), Carl Graebe (discoverer of alizarin), Oscar Loew, Constantin Fahlberg, Nikolai Menshutkin, Vladimir Markovnikov (first to describe smaller and larger than cyclohexane, and known for Markovnikov's rule describing addition reactions to alkenes), Jacob Volhard, Ludwig Mond, Alexander Crum Brown (first to describe the double bond of ethylene), Maxwell Simpson, and Frederick Guthrie.
His rejection of structural chemistry, especially the theories of the structure of benzene by August Kekulé, the theory of the asymmetric carbon atom by J.H. van't Hoff, and the reform of chemical nomenclature by Adolf von Baeyer, was expressed in his vituperative articles in the Journal für Praktische Chemie. Some translated quotes illustrate his manner of articulating the deep conflict between his interpretation of chemistry and that of the structural chemists:
« ...Baeyer is an excellent experimentor, but he is only an empiricist, lacking sense and capability, and his interpretations of his experiments show particular deficiency in his familiarity with the principles of true science...»The violence of his language worked to limit his posthumous reputation.
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