Biography

General
Armin Daniel Hermann is German origin and was born in Bessarabia. Bessarabia is a region at the Black Sea. 1833, when Armins great-great-great-grandfather from Kleinheppach (kingdom Württemberg in Germany) settled in Bessarabia, the region was the southern part of Russia. After World War I Bessarabia came to Romania, so Armin was born in Romania. In June 1940 Sowjet Russia occupied Bessarabia and all German settlers were invited by Hitler to leave Bessarabia and to come “back into their homeland”. About 98% of the German settlers followed Hitlers invitation. Armins father as a professional teacher got an employment in Dirschau (polish: Czew), a town in West Prussia, where Armin 1944 attended the primary school. The further school education Armin Daniel got in Bucha and Rossleben in Thuringia in the German Democratic Republic. He finished the secondary school with the highest possible result and from 1955 to 1961 studied at the Technical University Dresden Chemistry and Nuclear Technology and finished with the academic degree Diplomingenieur (diploma in engineering) by defending the diploma thesis “Extraction of Zirconium with Di-n-butyl Phosphoric Acid”. After being 4 years an aspirant at the Moscow State Lomonossow University in 1965 he finished with a PhD degree with the thesis entitled “Investigation into Cocrystallisation of Alkaline Earth Elements with Hydrophosphates of Strontium and Barium using an Electrochemical Method of Attaining Equilibrium”. In 1984 Armin Daniel Hermann reached the university level of a professor/lecturer by defending the thesis “Contribution to Radioanalytical Methods and their Use for Investigations into Fission Product – Nuclear Fuel Systems” (habilitation).

One son Kay-Geert Armin Hermann, born January 25, 1972 in Dresden, from marriage with Christine Hermann (MD, maiden name: Seidel). Divorce 1981. Kay-Geert Armin Hermann Family: Kay-Geert Armin Hermann (MD, Prof. med.) and Sandra Hermann (MD, maiden name: Schuchardt) with sons Friedrich Peter Hermann, born December 24, 2002 in Berlin, and Robert Armin Hermann, born August 13, 2004 in Berlin. 

Career

After returning from Moscow Armin Daniel Hermann began his work as scientist at the German Academy of Sciences, Central Institute of Nuclear Research, in Rossendorf near Dresden. Soon he was nominated as leader of a radio-analytical group dealing with separation and determination of fission products and other elements of interest in the process of energy production in nuclear reactors. He investigated spent fuel as well as nuclides within cooling water of all nuclear reactors in the German Democratic Republic in normal and accidential operation. In 1975 Armin Daniel Hermann advanced to the head of department. The fields of investigation were liquid-liquid extraction, extraction chromatography, co-precipitation, ion chromatography, mass-, gamma-, alpha-spectrometry, burn-up determination of spent nuclear fuel. 

Besides of the scientific work to improve the efficiency of nuclear reactor operation Armin Daniel Hermann was engaged in educating students in the field of Radiochemistry by co-operation with the Technical University Dresden (TUD), the Technical High School Zittau (THSZ), the Academy of Sciences (AoS) and the School for Chemical Engineering Koethen (SCEK). He offered thesis projects to students and was acting as supervisor of experimental work to finish as an Engineer in Chemistry (SCEK), to defend the diploma thesis in Radiochemistry (TUD) and to get practical experience in Radiochemistry (AoS). At the TUD Armin Daniel Hermann was nominated several times as an expert in valuation of PHD thesis work. He contributed as co-author to the textbook “Radiochemical Methods” for post-graduate students at the TUD. At the THSZ he educated students by giving lessons in Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing and performed examinations in the field.

In 1990 Armin Daniel Hermann accepted an offer of the Paul-Scherrer-Institute in Switzerland and continued his scientific work as project leader of several projects of international cooperation dealing with the improvement of nuclear fuel and fuel rod cladding materials. The most interesting results were achieved by investigating an UO₂ nuclear fuel irradiated in a PWR to a burn-up in excess of 110 MWd/kgHM, in cooperation with Siemens (Germany) and the Goesgen Nuclear Power Station (Switzerland). Especially the high level of fission gas migration into the fuel rod free volume was unexpected and led to a new interpretation of the migration mechanism.

In summary all his scientific achievements were documented in 128 publications in the open literature.

Membership in international councils of scientific expertise: (1) Council of Mutual Economic Aid: Scientific-Technological Coordination Council on Fuel Reprocessing and Waste Disposal, 1971-87; (2) Nuclear Fuel Industry Research (NFIR) Group (managed by Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, USA): Fuel Cladding Projects Advisory Group (1997-2004). Scientific Journals Cooperation: (1) Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal "ISRN Corrosion"; (2) Referee of the Journal "Nuclear Engineering and Design".

Armin Daniel Hermann is also known as an author of books dealing with the history of German settlers in Russia (his own ancestors).Publisher: BoD - Books on Demand, Norderstedt. ISBN: 9783752894561, 2020: "Aniels Escape through whole Europe" (In German:    "Aniels Flucht durch ganz Europa": From birth in Bessarabia on the Black See via West Prussia, the German Democratic Republic, the Federal Republic of Germany to Switzerland).

Weblinks
◙ Homepage: http://Armin-Daniel-Hermann.ch

◙ German National Library: https://portal.dnb.de/opac.htm?query=Armin+Daniel+Hermann&method=simpleSearch

Important Publications (Co-authors in parentheses)

◙ "On the extraction of zirconium from solutions of perchloric acid by di-n-butylphosphoric acid", Chem. Technik 14 (1962) 122 (H. Grosse-Ruyken) [Paper at the "General Annual Meeting of the Chemical Society in the German Democratic Republik 1961] 

◙ "Attaining equilibrium between crystalline phase and liquid using an electrochemical method" Vestnik Moscovscogo Universiteta, 1964, No. 6, Ser. II, p. 29 (N.B. Mikheev, V.I. Spitzyn) 

◙ "Experience in developing and applying destructive radiochemical methods of burnup determination", Proc. 2nd CMEA Symposium "Investigations in the Field of Fuel Reprocessing", Marianske Lazne, May 10-14, 1971, v. II, p. 150 (L. Baraniak) 

◙ "Destructive burnup determination - methods and trends", Kernenergie 16 (1973) 362 

◙ "Determination of plutonium after its separation from uranium and fission products", J. Radioanalyt. Chem. 28 (1975) 133 (D. Nebel, S. Trebeljahr) [Paper at the Meeting "Nuclear Analytical Methods 1975", Dresden, May 12-15, 1975]

◙ "Investigations into uranium and plutonium fissions by isotopic analysis of fission ruthenium.I. Principle of the method and proving its applicability",  Radiochem. Radioanal. Letters 28 (1977) 393 (H. Stephan) 

◙ "Isotopic correlations with gamma-active fission products for nuclear safeguards of WWER type fuel", J. Radioanalyt. Chem. 58 (1980) 101 (H.-C. Mehner) [Paper at the "2nd Meeting on Nuclear Analytical Methods", Dresden, March 19-23, 1979] 

◙ "Radiochemical Methods", Textbookfor postgraduate students, Technical University Dresden (1981) (R. Münze, H. Koch, G.-J. Beyer, R. Haberlandt) 

◙ "The mother isotope of nuclear fission U-235 - 50 years anniversary of the discovery", Isotopenpraxis 21 (1985) 237

◙ Patent: "Rough localization procedure of  defective fuel assemblies during the operation of  power reactors", GDR patent WP G 21 C/298474 4 (1986) (H. Zänker, H. Günther)

◙ "Zircaloy cladding hydriding and hydrogen uptake of NFIR Gösgen Project fuel rods", Paper at the 21st NFIR Meeting, 22-24 April, 1992, Chester, UK 

◙ "Investigation of in-pile grown corrosion films on zirconium based alloys", in "Proc. 11th International  Symposium on Zirconium in the Nuclear Industry", 11-14September, 1995, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, ASTM STP-1295 (1996) 218 (O. Gebhardt, G. Bart, H. Blank, F. Garzarolli, I.L.F. Ray)

◙ "Thermal behavior of hydrogen in Zircaloy corrosion layers ", Journal of Nuclear Materials 302 (2002) 217

◙ "Fuel rod puncturing and fission gas analysis: improvements in equipment and methodology", Proc. Annual Meeting on Nuclear Technology 2002, 14-16 May 2002, Stuttgart, Germany, p. 331-334 (R. Bühner, P. Schleuniger)