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Chemistry III
 While celebrating its centenary in 1977, the Royal
Institute of Chemistry of Great Britain shared honors with English Nobel
prize winners in chemistry and physics on these stamps: William Henry
Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg, for their analysis of crystal structure
by means of X-rays and their X-ray spectrometer; Archer Martin (1910-
) and Richard Synge (1914-94), for their invention of partition chromatography;
Walter Haworth (1883-1950), for research on carbohydrates and the synthesis
of vitamin C; and Derek Barton (1918- ), for his work in conformational
analysis of steroids. |
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 Louis
Pasteur (1822-1895) advanced the field of stereochemistry with his studies
of optical isomers and methods of separating them. He went on to develop
vaccines for rabies and anthrax, and the process now known as pasteurization,
in which microorganisms which cause spoilage of products such as wine
or milk are killed by the application of heat. His work helped to disprove
the theory of spontaneous generation, which was still current in the 1860's:
it was believed that living organisms could spontaneously arise from inanimate
matter, such as maggots from meat. Pasteur excluded invisible airborne
organisms from samples by means of S-shaped necks on flasks. |
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Leo Hendrik Baekeland (1863-1944) was a Belgian inventor who worked in the United States. From phenol and formaldehyde he developed the first plastic impervious to heat, water, and solvents which he called bakelite. This substance had important applications in electronics and the automotive industry, and was followed by the countless number of synthetic plastics in use today. |
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Victor Grignard (1871-1935) was a French mathematician
turned organic chemist. His investigation of organomagnesium compounds
led to his discovery of the so-called Grignard reagents, compounds useful
in the synthesis of hydrocarbons, alcohols, ketones, aldehydes, ethers,
and more. For this achievement he shared the 1912 Nobel prize in chemistry
with Paul Sabatier.
Paul Sabatier (1854-1941) discovered the catalytic effect of finely ground metals on organic reactions, leading to the hydrogenation of organic compounds (for example, margarine). This work was important for many industrial processes, and resulted in the award of the shared 1912 Nobel prize in chemistry for Sabatier. |
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Ernest Solvay (1838-1922) was a Belgian industrial chemist who originated the Solvay process for the manufacture of sodium carbonate (soda ash) from salt, ammonia, carbon dioxide and limestone by an ingenious sequence of reactions involving recovery and reuse of practically all the ammonia and part of the carbon dioxide. He became very wealthy from his many patents and founded international institutes for research in chemistry, physics, and sociology. |
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Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald (1853-1932) received the 1909 Nobel prize in chemistry "in recognition of his work on catalysis and for his investigations into the fundamental principles governing chemical equilibria and rates of reaction." |
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