Ralf Steudel (* 25 March 1937 – 12 February 2021) was a German chemist and university professor who was known for his research in the area of sulfur chemistry as well as for his textbook Chemistry of the Non-Metals, which appeared in several languages and many editions.

In 1954 he escaped to West Berlin, and started his university studies in chemistry in 1957 at the Free University Berlin under the supervision of Peter Wolfgang Schenk, whose research focused on sulfur monoxide and related chalcogen compounds.

In 1965, he received his PhD in chemistry at Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin)[2] where he subsequently made his habilitation work resulting in the venia legendi for inorganic chemistry in 1969.

[3] In the same year he was appointed professor of inorganic chemistry at TU Berlin, a position he held until his retirement in 2003.

[5] Much of his work benefited from the use of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to analyze reaction and to assess purity.