Mond, Ludwig

(1839–1909) German–British industrial chemist.

Son of a prosperous Jewish merchant, Mond studied chemistry . From 1858 he had jobs in chemical industry, and devised a rather unsatisfactory process for recovering sulphur from the offensive ‘alkali-waste’ of the Leblanc soda-making process. He operated this in Widnes in the 1860s. In 1872, with J T Brunner (1842–1919), he began to use the new Solvay process in his own works at Winnington, Cheshire. This made soda (Na2CO3 ) from common salt, ammonia and carbon dioxide, and displaced the Leblanc process.

In 1889 the corrosion of warm nickel by CO was noted and found to be due to the formation of volatile Ni(CO)4 . Mond saw this as a novel way of purifying nickel, by forming and purifying the tetracarbonyl and then decomposing it by heat; he set up the Mond Nickel Company to do this. Mond became very wealthy and his benefactions included the re-equipping of the Royal Institution’s laboratory and the gift of his valuable art collection to the National Gallery. Brunner, Mond and Company in 1926 became a major component in the merger which formed ICI.