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This Week in Chemistry: April 28 - May 4
April 28, 2008 at 01:36 AM
Analtech, Inc. is proud to provide this public service feature - This Week in Chemistry - a recap of major breakthroughs in chemistry as well as the commemoration of key individuals birthdates.
Analtech thanks Dr. Leopold May of The Catholic University of America forproviding this information - you can visit his web site by clicking here.
April 28
b. 1753 Franz K. Achard invented process for extraction of sugar from sugar beets & opened first beet sugar factory, 1801; first to prepare platinum crucible, 1784.
b. 1924 Alfred Bader founded the Aldrich Chemical Co. in 1951 and cofounded Sigma-Aldrich Corp. in 1975.
b. 1941 K. Barry Sharpless discovered and developed many catalytic oxidation processes for stereoselective oxidation; Nobel Prize (2001) shared with William S. Knowles and Ryoji Noyori for their work on chirally catalyzed hydrogenation reactions.
o Champion International incorporated, 1937.
April 29
b. 1893 Harold C. Urey, first to isolate heavy water (D2O), 1932; Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1934) for the discovery of heavy hydrogen or deuterium (D, 1), 1932.
o Atlantic Richfield Co., incorporated 1870.
o Nashua incorporated as Nashua Card, Gummed & Coated Paper, 1904.
April 30
o Joseph J. Thomson announced discovery of the electron as a body smaller than atoms but a constituent of it, 1897.
o Albert Ghiorso, et al., announced the discovery of mendelevium (Md, 101) based upon research done at the University of California, Berkeley, 1958.
May 1
b. 1493 Paracelsus or Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim founded new school of chemistry, iatrochemistry, which is the application of chemistry to medicine; believed that the four elements (air, water, earth, & fire) were present in substances as three principles: mercury (volatility and fusibility), sulfur (inflammability), and salt (incombustibility); developed cure for St. Vitus Disease.
b. 1824 Alexander W. Williamson, researcher on alcohols & ethers; first to suggest the intermediate compound theory of catalysis with Kay; synthesized ethylene glycol.
May 2
b. 1802 Heinrich Gustav Magnus, a German chemist and physicist who discovered the Magnus effect (the lift force produced by a rotating cylinder which, for example, gives the curve to a curve ball): the first platino-ammonium compounds; absorption of gases by blood, expansion of gases when heated, vapor pressures of water and various solutions, electrolysis, induced and thermoelectric currents, optics, magnetism and hydrodynamics: discovered also sulfovinic, ethionic, and isethionic acids, and (with Ammermüller) periodic acid; investigated the diminution in density produced in garnet and vesuvianite by melting; and studied the property inherent in the blood of absorbing carbonic acid and oxygen (founding thereon the theory of the absorption of the blood).
b. 1876 Austin McD. Patterson, leader in the field of chemical nomenclature.
b. 1922 George Claude Pimentel, researcher in the development of chemical lasers, matrix isolation techniques and rapid scan infrared spectroscopy.
o BF Goodrich Co. incorporated, 1912.
o Pennsylvania and Lehigh Zinc Company was incorporated, 1855.
May 3
b. 1852 Frank A. Gooch, developed filter crucible, electrolytic estimations of metals, & distillation for estimating boric acid.
b. 1895 Herman F. Mark, "Father of polymer chemistry"; developed process for production of styrene from ethylbenzene.
May 4
b. 1777 Louis J. Thenard discovered hydrogen peroxide & Thenard's blue used in coloring porcelain; showed that caustic soda & potash contained hydrogen & oxygen; researcher with chlorine & alkali metals; discovered potassium & sodium peroxides.
b. 1844 Wilbur O. Atwater, one of the inventors of Atwater-Rosa-Benedict respiration calorimeter; established the first agricultural experimental station in the United States at Wesleyan College; determined the chemical composition and nutritive values of fish and animal tissues.
b. 1876 Arthur A. Blanchard, researcher on metal carbonyls & other inorganic compounds.
o Acetylene made by T. L. Willson of Spray, SC, 1892.
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