DEUEL, HANS ERWIN

DEUEL, HANS ERWIN (1916–1962), Swiss agricultural chemist and expert on plant gums and pectins. He was born in Leipzig, Germany, and went to Switzerland in 1934. Deuel's entire working career was spent at the Technische Hochschule at Zurich where he became professor of agricultural chemistry in 1949. He was primarily interested in the polysaccarides, relating properties such as gelation and complex formation with their structural features. In the field of soil science he investigated the ion exchange properties of plant roots, organic weathering through the degradation of clays by orthodiphenols, carbohydrates in soils, and the chemistry of humic substances. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Neukom, in: Nature, 193 (1962), 927. (Samuel Aaron Miller)