Johann Böhm

Who was Johann Böhm?

Johann Böhm was a German Bohemian chemist who focused on photochemistry and radiography. The aluminum-containing mineral boehmite was named after him.

Böhm studied at the German Polytechnic University in Prague and then worked with Fritz Haber in Berlin where he re-designed and considerably improved the Weissenberg x-ray goniometer. In 1926 George de Hevesy, then a professor at the University of Freiburg, invited Böhm to co-operate with him on a series of experiments in spectrographic analysis. Afterwards Böhm worked at Freiburg University as an assistant and later as an associate professor. From October 1935 he was a professor of physical chemistry at the German University in Prague. After the war Böhm was allowed to remain in the country and become again a citizen of Czechoslovakia because he had been active in the anti-Nazi movement supporting Czech scientists such as Jaroslav Heyrovský, but was not permitted to continue his academic career. He worked in an industrial research institute in Rybitví. A few days before his death he was appointed Corresponding Member of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences.