Hans Georg von Schnering (born 6 July 1931 in Ranis, died 22 July 2010 in Aidlingen) was a German chemist and professor of inorganic chemistry at the University of Münster, honorary professor at the University of Stuttgart and director at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research.
Born in 1931 as the son of a doctor, Schnering initially trained as a baker before embarking on studying chemistry at the University of Münster in 1951.
[2] He also explored polyphosphides and -arsenides, which constitute subclasses of Zintl phases: he discovered the “Ufosane” P113-, “aromatic” P64-, P15− and P14S as cutouts from “Hittorf’scher Phosphor”, or As88-, an analogue of S8.
[3] He also developed the Periodic Nodal Surfaces (PNS) to understand and classify solids and also to derive structure-property relationships in crystals.
[2][1] Furthermore, he worked on the development of the Electron Localization Function (ELF) that is nowadays an established tool to understand and visualize the bonding situation in solids.