BEHREND, ANTON FRIEDRICH ROBERT

(b. Harburg [now part of Hamburg], Germany, 17 December 1856; d. Hannover, Germany, 15 September 1926),

chemistry.

Behrend was a law student at Freiburg im Breisgau (1876 – 1877) before enrolling at Leipzig (1877–1881) as a chemistry student. After receiving the Ph.D. he served as assistant in the physical chemistry institute at Leipzig until 1887. He became Privatchzent in chemistry in 1885 and professor of chemistry four years later. In 1895 Behrend moved to the Technische Hochschule in Hannover, where he was professor of organic chemistry (1897–1925) and of physical chemistry (1897–1911). He received gold medals at the expositions in Chicago (1893) and St. Louis (1904) and an honorary degree from the Technische Hochschule of Danzig (1924). He died during the 1926 typhus epidemic in Hannover.

Behrend was best known for his research in synthetic organic chemistry, especially as it related to biologically important materials. He provided the first synthesis of uric acid (1888) to reveal that it is a purine derivative. He condensed urea with ethyl acetoacetate to form β-uramidocrotonic ester. By means of a series of steps he converted this compound into isodialuric acid, which he condensed with urea to form uric acid. In 1882 Emil Fischer had ventured structural formulas for uric acid and other purines. Behrend’s synthesis helped to confirm Fischer’s formulas for the purine group. Behrend also synthesized isobarbituric acid and developed a general method for preparing 5-aminouracils.

Behrend made several important contributions to carbohydrate chemistry. In 1904 he established the existence of two forms of d-glucose (α- and β-glucose). He developed a method for preparing the β-form (1910) and investigated the isomeric phenylhydrazones of glucose (1910). These researches provided proof of a ring structure in d-glueose.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Important papers by Behrend include “Über synthetische Versuche in der Harnsäurereihe,” in Berichte der Deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft, 21 (1888), 999–1001, written with Oscar Roosen; “Synthese der Harnsäure, “in Justus Liebigs Annalen der Chemie, 251 (1889), 235–236, written with O. Roosen; “Über die Birotation der Glykose,” ibid., 331 (1904), 359–382, written with Paul Roth; and “Über Diphenylhydrazone der lykose,” ibid.. 377 (1910), 189–220, written with Willy Reinsberg.

II. Secondary Literature. There is a biographical sketch of Behrend and a bibliography of published papers by A. Skita in Berichte der Deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft, 59A (1926), 158–164. His works are listed in Poggendorff, IV, 90–91; V, 84–85; and VI, 162. There is a biographical article by Georg Lockemann in Neue deutsche Biographic, II (Berlin, 1955), 11.

Albert B. Costa