Behind the Bricks: Kolthoff Hall
Izaak Maurits Kolthoff

Smith. Kolthoff. Tate. Amundson. Shepherd. Lind. Although hundreds of IT students pour through buildings bearing these names on a daily basis, few of us know anything about the people for whom they are named. This new series, "Behind the Bricks," provides biographical insight into the influential scientists and engineers who helped shape the Institute of Technology and whose legacies live on within the walls of our buildings.

by Bethany Steichen

Divisions between disciplines in science were not always as permeable as they are today. For example, chemistry students find that a foundation of mathematical principles, physics, quantum mechanics and kinetics is compulsory, but this was not always the case. It usually takes a person of global vision to understand how crossovers in the sciences are feasible and mutually beneficial. In the field of analytical chemistry, the person to either thank or blame (depending on how well you liked those classes…) is Izaak Maurits Kolthoff, the "father of modern analytical chemistry".

Kolthoff was born in Almelo, Netherlands in 1894; the last of three children in an Orthodox Jewish family. He first became interested in chemistry during a high school course in the subject. He zealously experimented and appropriated part of the kitchen for a laboratory. Much to the chagrin of his family, his experiments often involved hydrogen sulfide.

Upon graduation in 1911, he entered the School of Pharmacy at the University of Utrecht. He would have preferred chemistry, but at that time it was considered a "pure science" and had a prerequisite of Greek and Latin. Kolthoff was fluent in French, German, English and his native Dutch at the time.

At a time when analytical chemistry was largely empirical, the pharmacy program emphasized a balance between theoretical prediction and descriptive outcomes. This blending of qualitative and quantitative approaches to chemistry marked all of his future work.

Kolthoff received his pharmacy degree in 1915 but decided to remain at Utrecht and study colloidal and physical chemistry. He also began publishing papers at this time. By 1923 he had become a lecturer of electrochemistry at the university and was invited to give special talks to bacteriologists, industrial and bio- chemists in academic and industrial settings.

Through these speeches, Kolthoff gained an international reputation and was invited on a lecture tour of Canada and the United States in 1924. The University of Minnesota offered him a one-year contract as a professor and head of the Division of Analytical Chemistry with a $4500 salary. He accepted and remained until his nominal resignation in 1962.

The changes that Kolthoff made to the field of analytical chemistry can best be summed up by his personal motto, "Theory guides, experiment decides." This gave a structured reason for recording experimental details and using variations in procedures and experimental results to understand and expand chemical theory. In order to effectively do this, the analytical chemist needed to analyze experiments from several prospectives and that necessitated courses in several branches of science. Overall, Kolthoff transformed analytical chemistry from an observational practice to a fundamentally sound discipline.

Kolthoff's personal research reflects his interests in several fields through its diversity and sheer volume. Over the course of his career, he published over 900 papers, several books and monographs on subjects ranging from pH and buffering to voltammetry to polymerization. He was also involved in research on synthetic rubber during WWII.

Despite enormous time spent on his research, Kolthoff remained active in other arenas as well. In his youth, he was an avid tennis player, horse-rider, swimmer and skier. Unfortunately, a skiing injury (subsequently aggravated by being thrown from a horse) severely injured his back. Spinal surgery left him partially paralyzed. Intense physical therapy allowed him to walk with a brace and a pronounced limp, but he refused to give up swimming and horseback riding. A newspaper in Texas even reported his rigorous physical routine of as being 45 minutes of exercise, breakfast, 4 to 5 hours of riding, dinner finally and a brisk swim. Kolthoff was seventy at the time.

Global politics was also a favorite subject, particularly when in concerned freedom of thought and expression. In the late 1930's, he was instrumental the Rockefeller Foundation's program to relocate scientists persecuted by the Nazi regime to the US.

After WWII, he traveled around Yugoslavia and the USSR and worked on campaigns for the control of nuclear weaponry. In doing this, he came in contact with a number of scientists considered controversial by the US government. He was an early critic of Sen McCarty and stressed the importance of building relationships with universities even if their political agenda disagreed with America's. These issues landed Kolthoff in trouble with the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950's. He was even accused of membership in 31 "subversive groups". All of the charges were subsequently dropped.

After a long and full life, Kolthoff died at the age of 99. He is remembered best for being a prominent member of Minneapolis society, a stimulating conversationalist, patron of the symphony, activist for social justice, and of course his monumental contributions to analytical chemistry.

Kolthoff's Kudos

• Knighted to the Order of Oranje-Nassau of the Netherlands (1938)
• Elevated to Commander of the Oranje-Nassau Order by the Dutch Queen (1947)
• Nichols Award (1945)
• Fischer Award in Analytical Chemistry (1950)
• Elected to the National Academy of Sciences (1958)
• Willard Gibbs Medal (1964)
• Electrochemical Society Olin-Palladium Medal (1981)
• Pittsburgh Analytical Chemistry Award (1981)
• Honorary Doctorate Degrees from:
• University of Chicago
• Brandeis University
• University of Arizona
• University of Groningen (Netherlands)
• Hebrew University of Jerusalem