Friedrich Raschig

Friedrich August Raschig was a German chemist and politician. He was born in Brandenburg an der Havel. After he received his PhD in 1884 from the University of Berlin for his work with Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, he started working at the BASF company. In 1891 he opened his own chemical company in Ludwigshafen am Rhein. He patented a number of chemical processes, particularly relating to phenols, one of which is now known as the Raschig phenol process, and nitrogen compounds—the Raschig process for producing hydroxylamine and the Olin Raschig process for producing hydrazine. He also developed improvements to distillation, in particular the Raschig ring, small metal or ceramic rings which are used in commercial fractional distillation columns.