Berl, Ernst

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BERL, ERNST

BERL, ERNST (1877–1946), Austrian-U.S. chemist. Berl was born in Silesia and worked at the Zurich Polytechnicum (1898–1907) and in a Belgian artificial silk factory (1910–14). In World War i he directed an Austrian explosives factory. Berl was professor of chemical technology and electrochemistry, Technische Hochschule, Darmstadt (1919–33); he emigrated to the U.S.A. and became research professor at Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh. He worked on lead chamber process, nitration of cellulose, and combustion problems and was coauthor of Chemisch-technische Untersuchungsmethoden (4 vols., 1921–23) and Chemische Ingenieur-Technik.