Marcellin Berthelot

Marcelin (also: Marcellin ) Pierre Eugène Berthelot ( born October 25, 1827 in Paris, † March 18, 1907 ) was a French chemist and politician. He discovered a synthesis of formic acid from carbon monoxide applied today.

Life and work

Marcelin Berthelot was a son of Jacques -Martin Berthelot and his wife Ernestine Ernestine Sophie Claudine Biard. He was the second of three children, the first child died as an infant. The father came from a family of iron forging, and studied medicine in Paris in 1822. During the cholera epidemic in 1832 he was hired as a doctor .. At the age of eleven years Marcellin Berthelot joined the Collège Henri IV in Paris at. Although interested students as much in history and philosophy, Berthelot turned to the natural sciences in the study. In 1847 Berthelot bachelierés lettres and was attended courses at the Faculty of Paris of Medicine and the Faculty of Science. He received his degree in July 1849.

Since 1851, he was employed as an assistant to the group of his former university teacher AJ Balard at the Collège de France, around this time also began his lifelong friendship with Ernest Renan. On 24 June 1854 he put his doctoral thesis on the topic Mémoire sur les combinaisons de la glycerol avec les acidic et sur ​​la synthesis of principes immédiats of graisses des animaux, in which he research results in continuing the work of ME Chevreul describes. In 1859 he was appointed professor of organic chemistry at the Ecole Supérieure de Pharmacie and 1865 a chair at the Collège de France was set for its research activities. Since May 10, 1861 he was married to Sophie Niaudet ( 1837-1907 ). Both had six children: Marcel André (1862-1939), Marie- Hélène (1863-1895), Camille (1864-1928), Daniel (1865-1927), Philippe (1866-1934) and René ( 1872-1960 ). In 1863 he became a member of the Académie nationale de Médecine, ten years later he was admitted to the Académie des Sciences, the French Academy of Sciences. In 1889 he became its permanent secretary in succession to Louis Pasteur.

In 1876 he was appointed Inspector General of Education and after his election to a non- temporary seat in the French Senate in 1881, he became involved specifically in the relevant conscription Education Questions In René Goblet 's Cabinet the years 1886 to 1887, he assumed the post of Minister of Education and from November 1, 1895 to March 28, 1896 he was French foreign minister in the cabinet of Léon Victor Bourgeois.

A son of Sophie Niaudet and Marcellin Berthelot came cruelly in a railway accident in 1904. Since Berthelot's wife had a serious heart condition. He had repeatedly asserted that he would not survive his sick wife Sophie Niaudet (1837-1907) and died a few minutes after her. The French government wanted to be buried in the Panthéon Berthelot, but not separate him even in the face of death circumstances of his wife, so that both were laid to rest there.

Scientific work

Since 1860, Berthelot was concerned with the synthesis of organic compounds. He made ethanol from ethylene and methanol from methane ago. Later found a method to produce formic acid from carbon monoxide, further comprising a synthesis of acetylene in carbon arc with the addition of hydrogen.

Since 1869, he turned to the thermochemistry. Berthelot was assumed that the reaction driving force of a substance implementation is critically dependent on the resulting amount of heat. This finding was later improved by Hermann Helmholtz. Berthelot led by a variety of measurements on heats of combustion of chemical substances and determined the heats of formation. The description of chemical reactions as exothermic or endothermic comes from Berthelot.

Later he also studied explosives and animals with thermochemical methods.

For his scientific achievements, he was taken on August 17, 1882 in the Prussian Order pour le Merite for Arts and Science as a foreign member.

Works

  • Studies on the affinities, on formation and decomposition of the ether. Ostwald's classic of the exact sciences; 173 Leipzig. Engelmann, 1910 Digitized edition of the University and State Library Dusseldorf
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