26 Facts About Erika Cremer

Erika Cremer was the only daughter and middle child of Max Cremer and Elsbeth Rosmund.

Erika Cremer's father, Max Cremer, was a professor of physiology and the inventor of the glass electrode.

Erika Cremer had two brothers, Hubert Cremer, a mathematician, and Lothar Cremer, an acoustician.

Erika Cremer's father moved to a new position in Berlin and Erika Cremer had trouble adjusting to the new Prussian school system.

Erika Cremer graduated high school in Berlin in 1921 and matriculated to the University of Berlin to study chemistry.

Erika Cremer's dissertation was on the kinetics of the hydrogen-chlorine reaction.

Erika Cremer refused and remained in Germany to work at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry with Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer on the quantum theoretical problems of photochemistry.

Erika Cremer studied the breakdown of alcohols using oxide catalysts on scholarship at the University of Freiburg with George de Hevesy for a brief time.

Erika Cremer returned to Berlin to work with Michael Polanyi at Haber's Institut, where they investigated the conversion of hydrogen and ortho-hydrogen in one spin state to para-hydrogen.

Erika Cremer remained there until 1933 when the Nazi party came to power in Germany and the institute was dissolved for its reputation as anti-Nazi.

Erika Cremer was unable to find work or continue research for four years.

Erika Cremer joined Otto Hahn at Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry to study radioactive trace compounds in 1937.

Erika Cremer moved labs shortly after to concentrate on isotope separation.

In 1938, Erika Cremer received her habilitation from the University of Berlin.

Erika Cremer was pleased with her new position and location because she was able to mountain climb, a hobby of hers.

At Innsbruck, Erika Cremer researched the hydrogenation of acetylene and found difficulty separating two gases with similar adsorption heats using the common methods of the day.

Erika Cremer was aware of the liquid absorption chromatography research going on at Innsbruck, so she thought of a parallel method to separate gases which used an inert carrier gas as the mobile phase.

Erika Cremer developed mathematical relationships and equations and instrumentation for the first gas chromatograph.

Erika Cremer initially submitted a short academic paper in 1944 to Naturwissenschaften, which was accepted and she informed them that future experimental work would follow.

Erika Cremer chose her idea of the gas chromatograph for his dissertation.

Erika Cremer was allowed to return to her work in late 1945.

Erika Cremer was appointed director of the Physical Chemistry Institute at Innsbruck and was made a professor in 1951.

Erika Cremer began presenting Prior and Muller's work in 1947 at various scientific meetings.

In 1951, three papers on Erika Cremer's work were published in Zeitschrift fur Elektrochemie, a lesser known German scientific journal.

Erika Cremer continued research at the University of Innsbruck and retired in 1971.

Erika Cremer remained active in gas chromatography until almost the end of life.