Karl Heinz Büchel (1931 – 2020)

Author: ChemViews Magazine
Published On: January 20, 2020
Copyright: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA

Karl Heinz Büchel, researcher and former Member of the Board of Bayer AG, Leverkusen, Germany, passed away on January 11, 2020. Büchel worked mostly in crop protection and pharmaceuticals and co-developed commercially successful antifungal medications such as clotrimazole as well as fungicides, pesticides, and herbicides.

Karl Heinz Büchel was born in Beuel, Germany, on December 10, 1931. He studied chemistry at the University of Bonn, Germany, where he received his Ph.D. in 1958 and then worked as a Researcher. He then served as a Researcher at Royal Dutch Shell, Sankt Augustin, Germany, for five years. In 1966, Büchel joined Bayer’s main scientific laboratory. He became Head of the chemical research group for crop protection at Bayer’s research center in Elberfeld, Germany, in 1971. In 1975, Büchel took over the lead at Bayer’s main laboratory and in 1976, he became Director of the central research unit at the company. He joined the board of Bayer AG in 1977. Büchel retired in 1995.

In addition to his work at Bayer AG, Büchel taught organic chemistry at the Technical University of Aachen, Germany, starting in 1973. He was made Honorary Professor there in 1975. In 1989, he also became Honorary Professor at the University of Bonn.

Among other honors, Büchel received honorary doctorates from the Technical University of Munich and the University of Bielefeld, both Germany. He was awarded the Order of Merit of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. He was a Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and served on the Editorial Boars of Angewandte Chemie from 1976 to 1985.

Selected Publications