Early years In 1916, Volmer went to work on military-related research at the Physical Chemistry Institute of the
Friedrich-Wilhelms University (today the Humboldt University of Berlin). From 1918 to 1920, he conducted research in industry at the
Auergesellschaft in Berlin. In 1919, he invented the mercury steam ejector, and he published a paper, with
Otto Stern which resulted in the attribution of the
Stern–Volmer equation and constant. Also attributed from his work during this time is the Volmer isotherm. In 1920, Volmer was appointed extraordinarius professor of physical chemistry and electrochemistry at the
University of Hamburg. In 1922, he was appointed ordinarius professor and director of the Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry Institute of
Technische Hochschule Berlin (
Berlin-Charlottenburg); the position was previously held by
Walther Nernst. It was during his time there that he discovered the migration of adsorbed molecules, known as Volmer diffusion. In 1930, he published a paper from which was attributed the Butler-Volmer equation, based on earlier work of
John Alfred Valentine Butler. This work formed the basis of phenomenological kinetic
electrochemistry. Before the end of
World War II, Thiessen, a member of the
Nazi Party, had Communist contacts. On 27 April 1945, Thiessen arrived at von Ardenne's institute in an armored vehicle with a major of the Soviet Army, who was also a leading Soviet chemist. All four of the pact members were taken to the Soviet Union. Hertz was made head of Institute G, in Agudseri (Agudzery), about 10 km southeast of
Sukhumi and a suburb of Gul’rips (Gulrip’shi); Volmer was initially assigned to Hertz's institute. Topics assigned to Gustav Hertz's Institute G included: (1) Separation of isotopes by diffusion in a flow of inert gases, for which Gustav Hertz was the leader, (2) Development of a condensation pump, for which
Justus Mühlenpfordt was the leader, (3) Design and build a mass spectrometer for determining the isotopic composition of uranium, for which Werner Schütze was the leader, (4) Development of frameless (ceramic) diffusion partitions for filters, for which Reinhold Reichmann was the leader, and (5) Development of a theory of stability and control of a diffusion cascade, for which
Heinz Barwich was the leader; Barwich had been deputy to Hertz at Siemens. Von Ardenne was made head of Institute A, in Sinop, in Moscow. Volmer was given a design bureau to work on the production of
heavy water;
Robert Döpel also worked at NII-9. Volmer's group with Victor Bayerl, a physical chemist and Gustav Richter a physicist, was under Alexander Mikailovich Rosen, and they designed a heavy water production process and facility based on the counterflow of ammonia. The installation was constructed at
Norilsk and completed in 1948, after which Volmer's organization was transferred to
Zinaida Yershova’s group, which worked on
plutonium extraction from
fission products.
Return to Germany In March 1955, Volmer returned to
East Germany. He received the Soviet Union's national prize, first class,
Hervorragender Wissenschaftler des Volkes (Outstanding Scientist of the People). On 1 May 1955, he became an ordinarius professor at the
Humboldt University of Berlin. On 10 November 1955, became a member of the
Wissenschaftlichen Rates für die friedliche Anwendung der Atomenergie of the Council of Ministers of the
German Democratic Republic (GDR). From 8 December 1955 to 1959, he became president of the German Academy of Sciences, after which he was vice-president until 1961. From 27 August 1957, he became an initial member of the
Forschungsrat of the GDR. Also in Volmer's honor, a street was named
Volmerstrasse in
Berlin-Adlershof,
Potsdam, and
Hilden. ==Personal==