Ludwig Mond

Ludwig Mond was a German-born British chemist and industrialist, born in Kassel in 1839, who discovered the class of compounds called metal carbonyls. He studied chemistry at Marburg under Hermann Kolbe and at Heidelberg under Robert Bunsen, and came to England in 1862 to work in Widnes. In 1873 he partnered with John Brunner to found Brunner Mond and Company, solving problems in the Solvay ammonia-soda process until it was commercially sound by 1880. In 1890 he discovered nickel carbonyl, which can be decomposed to give pure nickel through the Mond process, and he founded the Mond Nickel Company. He offered his employees paid holidays and fringe benefits, and died in 1909.