This Week in Chemistry: June 16 - June 22

June 16, 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.


June 16

b. 1880 Otto Eisenschiml, devised means to determine whether vegetable oils contaminated with fish oils; American Civil War historian.

b. 1897 Georg Wittig, researcher in conversion of C=O to C=C (Wittig reaction); research on ylides and phosphorus ylides; Nobel Prize (1979) with Herbert C. Brown for their development of the use of boron- and phosphorus-containing compounds, respectively, into important reagents in organic synthesis. 

o Henry E. Roscoe announced isolation of metallic vanadium, 1869.

June 17

b. 1832 William Crookes, discovered thallium (Tl, 81), 1861; separated uranium into two parts, naming the new one, uranium-X.

b. 1860 William Perkin, Jr., synthesized terpenes and alkaloids.

 

June 18

b. 1870 Charles Baskerville developed processes for refining & hydrogenation of oils, plastic compositions, & reinforced lead; researcher in anesthetic chemistry.

b. 1906 Edward D. Hughes, researcher in physical organic chemistry.

b. 1918 Jerome Karle developed methods for determination of crystal structures with x-rays; Nobel Prize (1985) with Herbert A. Hauptman for their outstanding achievements in the development of direct methods for the determination of crystal structures.

b. 1932 Dudley R. Herschbach developed molecular beams to study products of collisions that occur; Nobel Prize (1986) with Yuan T. Lee & John C. Polanyi for their contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elementary processes. 

b. 1906 Maria Goeppert Mayer developed the shell model of the nucleus; research in isotopes effect; Nobel Prize Physics (1963) with J. H. D. Jensen for discoveries concerning nuclear shell structure.

June 19

b. 1868 Karl Landsteiner discovered the human blood groups; Nobel Prize in Medicine (1930) for his discovery of human blood groups.

b. 1897 Cyril N. Hinshelwood, researcher in chemical kinetics; Nobel Prize (1956) with Nikolai N. Semenov, for their researches into the mechanism of chemical reactions.

b. 1910 Paul J. Flory researcher in physical chemistry of macromolecules; Nobel Prize (1974) for his fundamental achievements, both theoretical and experimental, in the physical chemistry of the macromolecules.


June 20

b. 1886 James R. Partington, researcher on specific heat of gases; historian of chemistry.

b. 1931 Mary L. Good, researcher in inorganic chemistry, industrial chemist, president of ACS.

o First doctorate in science earned by a woman, Caroline Willard Baldwin, Cornell University, 1895.

o W. R. Grace & Co. incorporated, 1899.

o L. B. Magnusson and T. J. La Chappelle isolated first microscopic quantity of compound of neptunium (Np, 93) at wartime Metallurgical Laboratory at University of Chicago, 1944.


June 21

o Lockheed incorporated as Lockheed Aircraft Corp., 1932.

o M. S. Tswett submitted the first paper on chromatography; “Physico-chemical studies on chlorophyll.  Adsorption behavior”, to the Journal of the German Botanical Society, 1906.


June 22

b. 1892 Nathaniel Howell Furman, researcher on analytical separation of uranium.

b. 1903 Harry Julius Emeléus, researcher in inorganic chemistry and fluorine chemistry.