MOLL, FRIEDRICH RUDOLF HEINRICH CARL

(b. Culm, Germany, 31 January 1882; d. Berlin, Germany, 8 May 1951)

naval engineering, wood technology.

After working on the docks and as a shipwright, Moll studied shipbuilding at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin-Charlottenburg from 1902 to 1907. Following his graduation he worked as an engine operator on English trawlers, then, in 1909, received a doctorate in engineering for a work on the possible causes of disappearance of long-missing trawlers.

From 1907 Moll was chiefly concerned with the preservation of wood. He obtained contracts to construct plants for impregnating telephone poles with mercuric chloride and studied this process (kyanizing) from a scientific, as well as technical, point of view. He published a large number of papers on both the biological and chemical aspects of preserving wood. From 1911 Moll privately built wood treatment works in a number of countries and his operations acquired an international reputation.

In 1920 Moll was awarded the doctor of philosophy degree by the University of Berlin for a study of the toxic effects of salts on fungi. Without giving up his profession of wood technologist, he qualified as a university lecturer and was Privatdozent at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin-Charlottenburg from 1922 until 1936, lecturing on the preservation of wood. He was thus led to prepare a comprehensive course of lectures on wood technology. Moll was a member of several national and international wood preservation societies and his authoritative papers appeared in many technical journals.

All of Moll’s publications endorse the kyanization process that he had helped to develop. Although he rejected in principle the use of arsenic as a preservative agent, he fully recognized that other, more sophisticated agents—including the bifluorides—must be the future means of preserving wood. After World War II Moll did work in Berlin on a number of topics, including the geographic distribution of the Teredinidae in Africa. He also worked closely with American wood experts on developing techniques for protection against shipworms.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I.Original Works. Moll’s writings include Über die Ursachen des Unterganges der verschollenen Fisch-dampfer (Berlin, 1909); “Schutz des Bauholzes in den Tropen gegen die Zerstörung durch die Termiten,” in Tropenpflanzer, 18 (1915), 591–605; “Untersuchungen über Gesetzmässigkeiten in der Holzkonservierung. Die Giftwirkung anorganischer Verbindungen (Salze) auf Pilze,” in Zentralblatt für Bakteriologie, Parasitenkunde, Infektionskrankheiten und Hygiene, 51 (1920), 257–279; Das Schiff in der bildenden Kunst (Bonn, 1929); Der Schiffbauer in der bildenden Kunst (Berlin, 1930); Künstliche Holztrocknung (Berlin, 1930); ’Teredinidae of the British Museum,” in Proceedings of the Malacological Society of London, 19 (1931), 201–218; Der Schutz des Bauholzes und die Schädlingsbekämpfung mit chemischen Mitteln (Karlsruhe, 1939); Die Terediniden im königlichen Museum für Naturkunde zu Brüssel (Brussels, 1940); “Übersicht über die Terediniden des Museums f̈r Naturkunde Berlin,” in Sitzungsberichte der Gesellschaft naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin 1940 (1941), 152–219; Zeitgem̈sse Verwendung von Holz in Bauwesen (Berlin, 1942); and Geographical Distribution of the Teredinidae of Africa (London, 1949).

II. Secondary Literature. Obituaries include that by Max Seidel, in Norddeutsche Holzwirtschaft, 5 (1951), 148–149; and those in Chemiker Zeitung, 75 (1951), 313–314; and Holz-Zentralblatt, 77 (1951), 794.

Kurt Mauel.