Ewa Neyman-Pilatowa
She graduated from the Gymnasium of Queen Jadwiga in Lviv and a piano class at the local Conservatory of the Polish Music Society. From 1927 to 1932, she studied chemistry at the Lviv University of Technology, obtaining a BSc in engineering in 1932. She finished her PhD in 1938 at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of the University of Lviv on the basis of the thesis, Some Properties of Natural Gas Solutions in Light Hydrocarbons (publication: Lviv 1939). In the years from 1931 to1933 she was an assistant at the department of general chemistry at the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, and then in the years from 1933 to 1934 at the department of inorganic chemistry at the Faculty of Chemistry at Lviv University of Technology.
In 1935 she married Stanisław Pilat, a chemist. From 1934 to 1941 she was employed as an assistant professor at the Department of Petroleum and Natural Gas Technology at the Faculty of Chemistry of Lviv University of Technology (renamed the Lviv Polytechnic Institute in the fall of 1939) under Pilat’s management. The Pilats worked together, inter alia, on the synthesis of high molecular weight reference hydrocarbons for lubricating oils in order to understand the relationship between their structure and physicochemical properties. The Chair headed by Pilat at the Lviv University of Technology was one of the best-equipped and most well-known institutions in the scientific world.,
Neyman-Pilatowa published 25 works. Her main research topic was the properties of petroleum oils. The first publications concerned pharmaceutical chemistry, including About Arsenic Derivatives of Indarol (‘Roczniki Chemii’, vol. 12, 1932), About the Therapeutic Use of Petroleum Sulfo Acids and Their Derivatives (‘Przegląd Dermatologiczny’, vol. 28, 1933). Later works related, inter alia, to systems: gases - light hydrocarbons - heavy hydrocarbons: The Heat of Dissolution of Natural Gases in Liquid Hydrocarbons (‘Przemysł Naftowy’, vol. 10, 1935), as well as the physicochemical properties and technology of kerosene: Zur Klassifikation der Schmieroele (‘Petroleum’, vol. 1035 No. 3), About the Ability to Moisten Lubricating Oils (‘Przemysł Naftowy’, vol. 11, 1936), and Synthetic Oils Obtained from Unsaturated Hydrocarbons (ibid., vol. 13, 1938).
During the war, from 1941 to 1944, N.-P. worked in the pharmaceutical factory ‘Laokoon’ in Lviv. In 1944 she was appointed head of the department of kerosene and natural gas technology at Lviv Polytechnic Institute. In April 1945 she started working at the Institute of Liquid Fuels of the Polytechnic Faculty of the Mining Academy in Krakow, where in May she obtained veniam legendi with kerosene technology. She became a deputy professor and took over the leadership of two newly created departments: kerosene and liquid fuels technology at the Faculty of Chemistry of the Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice and the same department at the Faculty of Chemistry of the Wrocław University of Technology. In 1945, she published two articles in the journal ‘Nafta’: The Problem of Liquid Fuels (2) and Catalytic Cracking (3). Her textbook Liquid Engine Fuels (Warsaw, 1950) was published posthumously.
In November 1945, Neyman-Pilatowa committed suicide. She had no children with Stanisław Pilat.
PSB (W. Kisielow); SBTP (J. Pietrusza); A. Dorabialska, W. Kisielow: Stanisław Pilat (1881–1941), Ewa Neyman-Pilatowa (1909–1945). Outline of Life and Activity, ‘Roczniki Chemii’, 1950, vol. 24, p. 11–23; A. Dorabialska, W. Kisielow: Stanisław Pilat (1881-1941) and Ewa Neyman-Pilatowa (1909-1945), ‘Chemical Industry’, 1958, No. 37, pp. 278–282; A. Dorabialska, One More Life, Łódź, 1998, p. 42; G. Pole: Prof. Stanisław Pilat (1881–1941), An Outstanding Chemist, Petroleum Technologist: https://ossolineum.pl/index.php/prof-stanislaw-pilat-1881-1941-wybitny-chemik-technolog-naftowy/ Z. Wójcik: Stanisław Pilat (1881–1941) – Technolog naftowy z Politechniki Lwowskiej, ’Wrocławskie Studia Wschodnie’, 2015, nr 19, s. 245–262: https://wuwr.pl/wrsw/article/download/6500/6159
Marcin Dolecki
Bibliographic abbreviations as in the dictionary of Professor Orłowski:
PSB - Polish Biographical Dictionary
SBTP - Biographical Dictionary of Polish Technicians