Petr Rehbinder

The career of Petr Rehbinder (1898–1972) connected pure science and industrial technology. He developed a theory that explained how surface-active substances reduce the hardness of materials—and proved it experimentally. The theory quickly brought about industrial innovations and has been extended to new materials over time.

On a Fast Track to Scientific Prestige

Rehbinder was born on October 3, 1898, in St. Petersburg, which at the time was the capital of the Russian Empire. His mother was a schoolteacher and his father, a distant descendant of Swedish nobility, was a navy physician. In his family, education was fostered from early childhood. Rehbinder learned to read and speak German at home and became fluent in French. Both languages would later serve him well in his scientific career.

His father died when Rehbinder was young and he was raised by his mother and grandmother. They moved to the city of Yalta in Crimea, and then travelled around Europe. He attended schools in Germany, Switzerland, and France, and finished high school (known in that context as a “gymnasium”) in the southern city of Kislovodsk when the family returned to Russia.

By the time Rehbinder reached adulthood, the country had undergone a drastic political change. The October Revolution of 1917—the final phase of overthrowing the Russian monarchy—was in full swing. The Bolsheviks, a far-left faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labor Party led by Vladimir Lenin, seized political power. But this Revolution was not universally accepted, resulting in a violent civil war between 1918 and 1922. The Bolsheviks became the sole legal party in the new Soviet state, and they later became the Communist Party. This state soon expanded to become the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.).

Rehbinder started school at Rostov University in southern Russia in 1917, but was not able to finish his studies due to the turmoil and hardships of the Russian Civil War. In 1922 Rehbinder moved to Moscow to take two additional years at the university toward a degree in molecular physics, thermodynamics, and mathematics. By then, the city was the new capital of a new country. Many things in society were in flux, including the Russian Academy of Sciences, which oversaw almost all scientific activity in the nation for more than 200 years. If an ambitious student wanted to advance as a scientist, the Academy was the place to work.

Very early in his scientific career, Rehbinder found an exciting area of research that was poorly understood and understudied: surface phenomena in disperse systems. As a scientist who was well-read, competent in several disciplines (chemistry, thermodynamics, and mathematics), and good at experiments, he had a strong skillset for solving scientific puzzles. Fluency in the languages of science at the time—French and German—allowed him to read papers of European colleagues who were working on similar problems. The atmosphere of academic freedom and intellectual engagement at the Academy encouraged him to propose an innovative idea.

The Flow of Steel

Hear Rehbinder talking in his mother tongue about late nights in the lab and the relationship between science and technology.

Even though he was still taking courses at Moscow University, Rehbinder started work as a junior researcher at the new Institute of Physics and Biophysics. Later, he would remember his early days as a time of vigorous discussions, bold experimentation, and unrestricted scientific curiosity. Researchers would come to the Institute as they pleased and stay up late into the night. They would gather for interdisciplinary colloquia led by the Institute’s director, the physicist and physician Petr Lazarev, and challenge each other to defend their theories. They shared a passion for solving scientific problems.

Though not a Communist Party member, Rehbinder was a staunch supporter of the regime. As a scientist, he made valued contributions to developing national industry and economy. Applications of his effect revolutionized drilling in oil and mineral mining, promoting access to natural resources that powered the economy. In heavy engineering, his work facilitated precision milling, grinding, and metal processing, yielding powerful machines. Decades after his death, researchers would recognize the significance of Rehbinder’s research for the new field of mechanochemistry.

Nonetheless, Pravda published an unfavorable review of his work in 1939. This might have been enough to end his career, or even his life. But friends from the Academy defended Rehbinder and he survived the blow. He went on to lead the department of Physical Chemistry at the D. I. Mendeleev Moscow Institute of Chemical Technology in 1940, and then was appointed head of the Department of Colloidal Chemistry at Moscow State University in 1942, where he organized experimental research on the properties of polymers, technologies for manufacturing heavy-duty construction materials, and composition of rock media and soils. In 1946 he was elected a full member of the Academy, the highest level of recognition for his scientific work.

Research and Organizational Legacy

Rehbinder was known to carry a school notebook everywhere he went, and to jot down ideas as they came. Early in their marriage, his wife, Elena, wanted to get a university degree and begin a professional career. He convinced her to abandon this ambition and to become his assistant, a so-called “faculty wife” instead. She typed academic publications and reports from his dictation whenever it was needed, kept the house ready for guests, and relieved her husband of worries about daily wants—бытовые заботы in the Russian language—so that he could focus on his work. Convalescing from a heart attack, Rehbinder once told his family that his next project would be to find ways to remove plaque and blockages from human blood vessels with the use of surfactants.

In 1968 Rehbinder co-organized the “All-Union Symposium on Mechanoemission and the Mechanochemistry of Solids” at a conference on colloid chemistry in Voronezh, located in the southwestern part of Russia. The meeting helped define a community with shared research interests. Such gatherings are, in fact, a common early step in the organization of a new scientific field. In the following years, annual Soviet conferences on mechanochemistry helped to further establish it as a distinct specialization within chemistry. Mechanochemists who have since looked into the early history of their field have debated whether or not the Rehbinder effect was a precursor to work on chemical reactions by grinding taking place today. These debates highlight the challenge of crediting any single individual with the birth of a new way of doing science.

Glossary of Terms

Disperse Systems
A mixture whereby fine particles of one substance are scattered throughout another substance.
Back >>

Surfactants
Substances that reduce surface tension when added to a liquid, increasing its ability to spread.
Back >>

Ductility
The ability of a material to stretch, bend, or spread without breaking.
Back >>

Great Purges
In the 1930s under Josef Stalin, this policy eliminated individuals who opposed the regime or whose convictions or influence could present a potential threat.
Back >>

Pravda
A widely circulated daily newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party.
Back >>

Further Reading

Rehbinder, Petr. “New Physico-Chemical Phenomena in the Deformation and Mechanical Treatment of Solids.” Nature 159 (1947): 866-7.

Takacs, Laszio. “Two Important Periods in the History of Mechanochemistry.” Journal of Material Science 53 (2018): 13324–13330.

“Academician P. A. Rehbinder,” Nature 240 (1972): 368.

---

Featured image: Petr Rehbinder at the Institute of Physics and Biophysics, Moscow, 1923.