Gerhard Ertl

Hi again readers!

In this time I`m working in winners of  Nobel Prizes for 2002 to 2015.

In this article I´m going to speak about Gerhard Ertl,because he is the person I have chosen. I choose him due to the fact that I like chemistry and also because he won the prize alone, and no like in the others half and half, this person worked alone and I think that he have more merit. 2007 also was the year that I liked so much, it was my favorite year in my childhood.

Because all of the reasons, I´m going to talk about his biography, his personal life and some interesting things.

Gerhard Ertl was born in 10th October of 1936 in Germany. He is 79 years old and at his age he is still working in surface chemistry. He also is a German physicist and a Professor emeritus at the Department of Physical Chemistry. Ertl’s researched laid the foundation of modern surface chemistry, which has helped to explain how fuel cells produce energy without pollution, how catalytic converters clean up car exhausts and even why iron rusts.

Like I mention before, Ertl was born in Stuttgart, Germany. He studied physics from 1955 to 1957 at the Technical University of Stuttgart and then, at the University of Paris(1957–1958) and Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich (1958–1959).

After completing his Ph.D, he became a assistant and lecturer at Technical University of Munich (1965–1968). From 1968 to 1973, he was Professor and Director at Technical University of Hannover. Then, he became a Professor at Institute for Physical Chemistry, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (1973–1986). During the 1970 and 1980, he was also a Visiting Professor at the California Institute of Technology, the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and the University of California, Berkeley. In 1986 he became professor at the Free University of Berlin and at the Technical University of Berlin. He was director at the Fritz Haber Institute of the MPG from 1986 until his retirement in 2004. He became professor at the Humboldt University of Berlin in 1996. Ertl now serves in his second term as a member of the university council of Technische Universität Darmstadt. Wikipedia

Gerhard Ertl won the Nobel Prize in chemistry on 2007 because of his studies of chemical processes on solid surfaces. Ertl and his wife Barbara have two children and several grandchildren. His hobbies include playing the piano and also playing with his cats when he is not doing experiments. He is a Christian.

Here you have an interesting video about Gerhard Ertl and the Nobel Prize.