Rudolf Hoppe (1922 – 2014)

Rudolf Hoppe (1922 – 2014)

Author: ChemViews Magazine

Rudolf Hoppe, University of Gießen, Germany, has passed away on November 25 at the age of 92. In 1962, he synthesized the stable noble gas compound XeF2.

Rudolf Hoppe, born in 1922 in Wittenberge, Germany, studied chemistry at the Christian-Albrechts-University, Kiel, Germany, and obtained his PhD from the Westfälische Wilhelms-University, Münster, Germany, in 1954. He also got his habilitation degree in Münster and gained a professorship for inorganic chemistry there in 1958. In 1965, Hoppe accepted an offer for the chair of inorganic and analytic chemistry at the Justus-Liebig-University of Gießen, Germany, which he kept until his retirement in 1991.

Hoppe’s research focused on solid state chemistry, especially the synthesis and characterization of oxo- and fluorometalates of the alkali metals.

Rudolf Hoppe published over 650 articles in international and national peer-review journals, had been the scientific editor for ZAAC (Zeitschrift für Anorganische und Allgemeine Chemie) from 1981 – 1997, and was awarded numerous prizes for his work, including the Alfred-Stock-Award of the German Chemical Society (GDCh) in 1974, the Otto-Hahn-Award for Chemistry and Physics in 1989 as the first representative of inorganic chemistry, and the Lavoisier-Medal of the Société de France in 1995.
Hoppe was a pet lover and will be remembered by his students for always asking for the color of a solid compound.


Selected Publications

  • On the Fluorination of Xenon: Xenon Difluoride, in: Noble‑Gas Compounds (Ed. Hyman),
    R. Hoppe, H. Mattauch, K.‑M. Rödder, W. Dähne,
    Chicago, USA, 1963, p. 98.


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