Ostwald

Ostwald is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in the Grand Est region of northeastern France. It lies near Strasbourg and is part of the urban area around the city. The name Ostwald derives from Germanic elements meaning "east wood" and reflects historical ties to the Alsace region, which has alternated between French and German control.

Ostwald is also a German surname that originated from a place name. The most prominent bearer is Wilhelm Ostwald (1853–1932), a Baltic German chemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1909 for his work in catalysis, chemical equilibria, and reaction kinetics. He helped establish physical chemistry as a discipline and influenced approaches to chemical thermodynamics and catalysis.

In science, several terms bear the Ostwald name. The Ostwald process is an industrial method for producing nitric acid from ammonia, involving the catalytic oxidation of ammonia to nitrogen monoxide, its subsequent oxidation to nitrogen dioxide, and absorption to form nitric acid. Ostwald ripening is a mechanism of coarsening observed in emulsions, colloids, and solid suspensions, where larger particles grow at the expense of smaller ones due to differences in solubility and surface energy. These concepts reflect Wilhelm Ostwald’s broad influence on modern chemistry and materials science.