Ferdinand Münz

Ferdinand Münz (1888-1969) was an Austrian chemist who first synthesized EDTA (ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid) at IG Farben in 1935, patented both in Germany (anonymously) and in the USA ^[1] (with his name), with the aim of producing a citric acid substitute, in order to reduce the German government's dependence on imports of chemical products from abroad. Münz noted that an aminocarboxylic acid worked much better as a chelating agent than citric acid and therefore thought that a polyaminopolycarboxylic acid would have worked even better.^[2]

In 1945 he worked closely with the future Nobel laureate Kurt Alder (1902-1958). In 1949 they published a paper together on diene synthesis and additions.^[3]