"ENRIQUE MOLES" HISTORICAL LABORATORY

RECREATION OF A LABORATORY OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY (JAE)

Inaugurated on 6 February 1932, under the direction of Blas Cabrera, the National Institute of Physics and Chemistry (INFQ) brought together a generation of extraordinarily talented scientists, comparable in the sciences to the generation of 1927 in the humanities. The INFQ was built thanks to a generous donation from the Rockefeller Foundation (USA) on the enterprise of the Junta para la Ampliación de Estudios e Investigaciones Científicas. The architects Manuel Sánchez Arcas and Luis Lacasa designed an avant-garde and functional building dedicated to scientific research that was inspired by others in Europe and America. The three floors of the "Rockefeller" housed physics (ground floor), chemistry-physics (first floor) and chemistry (second floor) laboratories.

The INFQ had five sections whose respective heads were Blas Cabrera (Electricity and Magnetism), Julio Palacios (X-rays), Miguel A. Catalán (Spectroscopy), Enrique Moles (Chemistry-Physics), Antonio Madinaveitia (Organic Chemistry) and Julio Guzmán (Electrochemistry). This space pays tribute to Enrique Moles, who introduced the most advanced physical chemistry research of his time in Spain. Thus, the environment of one of those laboratories has been recreated, with the carefully reconditioned laboratory furniture, the hoods for handling volatile substances, the austerely designed work tables and chairs, and even the original colour of the walls. The historic laboratory includes an exhibition of the original scientific equipment used since its creation. Instruments that combined scientific precision with artistic taste.

Enrique Moles Ormella (Barcelona, 1883 – Madrid, 1953)^*

Graduated in Pharmacy from the University of Barcelona in 1905, he obtained his doctorate in 1906 from the Central University of Madrid. Financed by the Junta para la Ampliación de Estudios (JAE), he completed his training at the Institute of Physical Chemistry at the University of Leipzig (1909 - 1910). Subsequently, at the University of Geneva (1915 - 1917), he was trained by Philipe Guye in the determination of atomic weights. In 1927 he obtained the chair of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Madrid. He developed his school of atomic weight determination at the Laboratory of Physics Research (JAE), the Faculty of Science and the National Institute of Physics and Chemistry (JAE), of which he was one of the driving forces.

Exiled in Paris after the Spanish Civil War, on his return in December 1941 he was imprisoned and sentenced to thirty years “for being anti-Spanish, a Freemason and an institutionalist”, among other charges. The total disqualification that accompanied the sentence prevented his re-entry to the University and the Institute, when he was paroled at the end of 1943. In 1934 he had been appointed vice-president of IUPAC, a position which enabled him to attend the Amsterdam (1949) and Washington (1951) Conferences and which alleviated his internal exile. In addition to promoting the establishment of Physical Chemistry in university studies, Moles is the great renovator of the teaching of chemistry with the introduction of research as part of university training.

* Text by Joaquim Sales i Cabré. Professor of Inorganic Chemistry. University of Barcelona.

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