Henk Buck (7 February 1930 – 27 November 2023) was a Dutch organic chemist. He was born in Dordrecht on 7 February 1930.[1] Buck studied at the University of Leiden where he received his PhD in 1959. He got a lectorship at the university in Theoretical Organic Chemistry in 1964. For his research he received the Golden Medal of the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society in 1967. In 1970 he was appointed professor of Physical Organic Chemistry and Organic Chemistry at the University of Technology in Eindhoven. Because there was no chair for Theoretical Chemistry and Biochemistry he gave lectures in organic chemistry, physical organic chemistry, theoretical organic chemistry, biochemistry and biotechnology. From 1988 to 1991 he was Dean of the Chemical Faculty. For his scientific contributions he became a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1979.[2] During his scientific career he published more than 300 scientific papers spread over a large area of the chemical field. Under his supervision 43 chemical engineers obtained their PhD. The end of his career came prematurely because of a publication in Science in 1990 regarding a possible cure for cancer that had to be retracted because of flawed research.[3]
His research in Leiden and later in Eindhoven was focused on organic chemistry as the homogeneous catalysis of the oxidation of hydrocarbons with stable carbenium ions as the pentamethylbenzyl cation [4] and the chiral induction with the redox couple NADH-NAD+ in the nearly 100% stereospecific hydride transfer to ketones and imines.[5] The latter process is controlled by the out-of-plane orientation of the carboxamide group.[6] In the field of physical chemistry his work was directed on electron spin resonance measurements of phosphoranyl radicals with phosphorus in different geometries as the tetrahedral and the trigonal bipyramidal configuration with the unpaired electron in an equatorial or axial orientation.[7] His contribution to the theoretical organic chemistry was based on Ab initio calculations of the radiationless transition of formaldehyde[8] and ab initio calculations of single vibronic level fluorescence emission spectra and absolute radiative lifetimes of formaldehyde.[9] Further he investigated deviations of the Woodward-Hoffmann rules as the photochemical [1,3]-OH shift in 2-propen-1-ol.[10]
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