Petr Aleksandrovich Rebinder

Born Sept. 21 (Oct. 3), 1898, in St. Petersburg; died July 12, 1972, in Moscow. Soviet physical chemist. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1946; corresponding member, 1933); Hero of Socialist Labor (1968).

Rebinder graduated from the physics and mathematics department of Moscow State University in 1924. In 1935 he became head of the dispersed systems department of the Colloid-Electrochemical Institute (from 1945 known as the Institute of Physical Chemistry) of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1942, maintaining his position at the institute, he became head of the subdepartment of colloid chemistry at Moscow State University. In 1958 he became chairman of the Scientific Council on Problems in Physicochemical Mechanics and Colloid Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and in 1967, of the USSR national committee affiliated with the International Congress on Surface Activity. Rebinder became editor in chief of Kolloidnyi Zhurnal (Colloid Journal) in 1968.

Rebinder’s major works dealt with the formation, stability, and disintegration of dispersed systems and widi the surface phenomena and structuration of these systems. His works also contributed to the concepts dealing with the molecular mechanism involved with surfactants and to concepts on the nature of detergent action, flotation, and selective wetting. Rebinder was also responsible for developing the physicochemical basis for applying surfactants to various technological processes. In 1928 he discovered that adsorption lowers the mechanical strength of solids (the Rebinder effect). Rebinder performed pioneering work in the field of physicochemical mechanics.

Rebinder was awarded the State Prize of the USSR in 1942. He also received two Orders of Lenin, two other orders, and various medals.