Karl August Neumann (6 April 1771 in Großbothen – 10 February 1866 in Prague) was a German-Austrian chemist, known for contributions made towards the development of the sugar and flax industries in Bohemia.^[1]

Beginning in 1793 he studied cameralistics at the University of Jena. From 1796 he spent several years as a teacher of commercial sciences on the Danish island of Als, then in 1802 relocated to Bohemia as head of a cotton factory in Josefsthal-Kosmanos. He made the acquaintance of Franz Josef von Gerstner, who in 1807 appointed him to the Polytechnic Institute in Prague, where from 1808 to 1817, Neumann worked as a professor of chemistry. In 1817 he was named Kommerzialrat (counsellor of commerce), and from 1817 to 1826, he served on the board of commercial and factory inspections.^[2][1]

Selected works

• Die Behandlung der Feuerwärme (II, 1799–1800).
• Lehrbuch der Chemie mit besonderer Hinsicht auf Technologie (vol. 1, 1810); Textbook of chemistry with particular regard to technology.
• Vergleichung der Zuckerfabrikation aus in Europa einheimischen Gewächsen mit der aus Zuckerrohr in Tropenländern (1837) – Comparison of sugar production from European indigenous plants with that of sugar cane from tropical countries.
• Chemie, als natürliche Grundlage wissenschaftlicher Natur- und Gewerbskunde (1842).^[3][2]