This Week in Chemistry: March 17 - March 23

March 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.

 

March 17

b. 1803 Carl Löwig, one discoverer of bromine (Br, 35) 1826, "but because of exams did not publish a report, thereby allowing A. Balard to receive precedence of discovery".

March 18

b. 1900 Laueren B. Hitchcock, expert in chemistry of the environment.

March 19

b. 1883 Walter N. Haworth, synthesized ascorbic acid (Vitamin C), 1933; researcher on sugars & dextran as blood plasma substitute; Nobel Prize (1937) for vitamin synthesis, with Paul Karrer.

b. 1900 Frédéric J. Joliot (Joliot-Curie), Nobel Prize, (1935) with wife Irène Joliot-Curie, for production of artificial radioisotopes, in 1934; proved experimentally that neutron emission occurs in nuclear fission with H. Halban & L. W. Kowarski.

b. 1943 Mario Molino, researcher in air pollution, particularly formation & destruction of ozone; Nobel Prize (1995) with Paul Crutzen & F. Sherwood Rowland for their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone. 

o The ten millionth CA Abstract was published in volume 100, issue number 12 of Chemical Abstracts, 1984.

March 20

b. 1735 Torbern Bergman, researcher on carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide & preparation of artificial mineral water.

b. 1834 Charles W. Eliot, teacher of chemistry, president of Harvard University.

b. 1879 Maude Leonora Menten, developed an equation (Michaelis-Menten) with Leonor Michaelis that relates the velocity of enzyme catalyzed reactions to the concentration of reactants 

o Bausch & Lomb incorporated as Bausch & Lomb Co., 1908.

March 21

b. 1817 George W. Rains, chemistry teacher & Confederate Army chemist.

b. 1932 Walter Gilbert, researcher on the determination of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) base sequence; Nobel Prize (1980) with Paul Berg & Frederick Sanger for their contributions concerning the determination of base sequences in nucleic acids.

o Michael Tswett gave first description of his chromatographic method before the Warsaw Society of Natural Sciences, 1903.

March 22

b. 1788 Pierre J. Pelletier discovered quinine, strychnine & other alkaloids; obtained toluene by distilling pipe resin with Philip Walter, 1836.

b. 1868 Robert A. Millikan measured the charge/mass ratio of the electron; Nobel Prize in Physics (1923) “for his work on the elementary charge of electricity and on the photoelectric effect”. 

March 23

b. 1867 Charles L. Parsons, researcher on beryllium (Be, 4); obtained federal charter for ACS; helped establish Petroleum research Fund.

b. 1881 Hermann Staudinger, researcher on the chemistry of macromolecular substances; Nobel Prize (1953) for his discoveries in the field of macromolecular chemistry.

o William Crookes identified new gas (isolated from air by William Ramsay) as helium (He, 2) that had been discovered in the Sun 27 years earlier by Norman Lockyer, 1895.

o Neil Bartlett made the first noble gas compound, XePtF6, 1962.