Otto Roelen

Who was Otto Roelen?

Otto Roelen was a German chemist.

Roelen studied chemistry and graduated in 1922 from Technische Hochschule Stuttgart. He worked with Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Coal Research from 1922. He developed the homogeneously catalysed hydroformylation process for the industrial synthesis of aldehydes from alkenes and carbon monoxide.

During the second world war he was chief chemist for Ruhr Chemie, and after the war he described the construction, operation and yields of oxo synthesis plants in detail to British Department of Scientific and Industrial Research interrogators.

Roelen was awarded the Adolf von Baeyer prize by the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker in 1963. In his honor, DECHEMA named the Otto Roelen prize after him.