Franz Fischer

Franz Fischer was a German chemist who directed the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Coal Research in Mulheim, where in the 1920s he and his colleague Hans Tropsch developed the Fischer-Tropsch process, a catalytic reaction that converts a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas, known as syngas, into liquid hydrocarbon fuel. Syngas for the process can be produced from coal, natural gas or biomass, and the Fischer-Tropsch process was industrialized in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s to help supply liquid fuel from domestic coal. The same chemistry remains in industrial use today at large gas-to-liquids and coal-to-liquids fuel plants.