Ralf Steudel

Ralf Steudel
Ralf Steudel
Born	(1937-03-25)25 March 1937 Dresden, Germany
Died	12 February 2021 (83) Berlin, Germany
Nationality	German
Alma mater	Free University of Berlin Technische Universität Berlin
Known for	Sulfur chemistry
Awards	Karl Winnacker Grant (1974–1978) Prize of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (2002)
Scientific career
Institutions	Technische Universität Berlin
Doctoral advisor	Peter W. Schenk

Ralf Steudel (* 25 March 1937 – 12 February 2021) was a German chemist and university professor who was known for his research in the area of sulfur chemistry as well as for his textbook Chemistry of the Non-Metals, which appeared in several languages and many editions. Complementing his pioneering contributions to polysulfides, he authored many reviews on the subject.

Steudel was born to a family of entrepreneurs in the Saxonian town of Kamenz. In 1954 he escaped to West Berlin, and started his university studies in chemistry in 1957 at the Free University Berlin under the supervision of Peter Wolfgang Schenk, whose research focused on sulfur monoxide and related chalcogen compounds. Steudel graduated in 1963. In 1965, he received his PhD in chemistry at Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin) where he subsequently made his habilitation work resulting in the venia legendi for inorganic chemistry in 1969. In the same year he was appointed professor of inorganic chemistry at TU Berlin, a position he held until his retirement in 2003. In 1973/74 he spent 1 year as a visiting professor at the Spectroscopy Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Research

Steudel made many contributions to the chemistry of sulfur. His group prepared several new allotropes, often using titanocene pentasulfide. Two examples are S₁₁ and S₁₃, which resulted from the titanocene reagent and S₆Cl₂ and S₈Cl₂, respectively. He also discovered routes to the lower sulfur oxides. One example is S₈O. Much of his work benefited from the use of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to analyze reaction and to assess purity. Using HPLC, he established the existence of rings up to S₁₈ and beyond.

Publications (textbooks)

• (with D. Scheschkewitz): Chemistry of the Non-Metals, 2nd ed., Berlin; Boston, Mass.: de Gruyter, 2019, 760 pages, ISBN 978-3-11-057805-8.
• (ed.): Anorganische Chemie: Prinzipien von Struktur und Reaktivität, Authors: James E. Huheey, Ellen A. Keiter, Richard L. Keiter, 5th Edition, Berlin; Boston, Mass.: de Gruyter, 2014, ISBN 978-3-11-030433-6.

External links

• Website on the Research Activities by R. Steudel and his group der Technischen Universität Berlin, retrieved 15 August 2010.