Claude Louis Berthollet

Claude Louis Berthollet
Born (1748-12-09)9 December 1748
Talloires, France
Died 6 November 1822(1822-11-06) (aged 73)
Arcueil, France
Residence France
Nationality Savoyard-French
Fields Chemistry
Institutions Academy of Science
Alma mater Chambéry, Turin
Lavoisier and Berthollet, Chimistes Celebres, Liebig's Extract of Meat Company Trading Card, 1929
Claude Louis Berthollet statue in Annecy, France

Claude Louis Berthollet (9 December 1748 in Talloires, France – 6 November 1822 in Arcueil, France) was a Savoyard-French chemist who became vice president of the French Senate in 1804.[1] He is known for his scientific contributions to theory of chemical equilibria via the mechanism of reverse chemical reactions, and for his contribution to modern chemical nomenclature. On a practical basis, Berthollet was the first to demonstrate the bleaching action of chlorine gas, and was first to develop a solution of sodium hypochlorite as a modern bleaching agent.

Biography

Claude Louis Berthollet was born in Talloires, near Annecy, then part of the Duchy of Savoy, in 1749.

He started his studies at Chambéry and then in Turin where he graduated in medicine. Berthollet's great new developments in works regarding chemistry made him, in a short period of time, an active participant of the Academy of Science in 1780.

Berthollet, along with Antoine Lavoisier and others, devised a chemical nomenclature, or a system of names, which serves as the basis of the modern system of naming chemical compounds.

He also carried out research into dyes and bleaches, being first to introduce the use of chlorine gas as a commercial bleach in 1785. He first produced a modern bleaching liquid in 1789 in his laboratory on the quay Javel in Paris, France, by passing chlorine gas through a solution of sodium carbonate. The resulting liquid, known as "Eau de Javel" ("Javel water"), was a weak solution of sodium hypochlorite. Another strong chlorine oxidant and bleach which he investigated and was the first to produce, potassium chlorate (KClO3), is known as Berthollet's Salt.

Bertholett first determined the elemental composition of the gas ammonia, in 1785.

Berthollet was one of the first chemists to recognize the characteristics of a reverse reaction, and hence, chemical equilibrium.

Berthollet was engaged in a long-term battle with another French chemist Joseph Proust on the validity of the law of definite proportions. While Proust believed that chemical compounds are composed of a fixed ratio of their constituent elements irrespective of the methods of production, Berthollet believed that this ratio can change according to the ratio of the reactants initially taken. Although Proust proved his theory by accurate measurements, his theory was not immediately accepted partially due to Berthollet's authority. His law was finally accepted when Berzelius confirmed it in 1811. But it was found later that Berthollet was not completely wrong because there exists a class of compounds that do not obey the law of definite proportions. These non-stoichiometric compounds are also named berthollides in his honor.

Berthollet was one of several scientists who went with Napoleon to Egypt, and was a member of the physics and natural history section of the Institut d'Égypte.

Awards and honours

In April, 1789 Berthollet was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.[2] In 1801, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1809, Berthollet was elected an associate member first class of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands, predecessor of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.[3] He was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1820[4] and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1822.[5]

Claude-Louis Berthollet’s 1788 publication entitled Méthode de Nomenclature Chimique, published with colleagues Antoine Lavoisier, Louis Bernard Guyton de Morveau, and Antoine François, comte de Fourcroy,[6] was honored by a Citation for Chemical Breakthrough Award from the Division of History of Chemistry of the American Chemical Society, presented at the Académie des Sciences (Paris) in 2015.[7][8]

Personal life

Berthollet married Marguerite Baur in 1788.[4]

Berthollet was an accused of being an atheist.[9]

He died in Arcueil, France in 1822.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Po-chia Hsia, R.; Lynn Hunt, Thomas R. Martin, Barbara H. Rosenwein and Bonnie G. Smith (2007). The Making of the West, Peoples and Culture, A Concise History, Volume II: Since 1340 (2nd ed.). New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s. p. 685.
  2. ↑ "Library and Archive Catalogue". Royal Society. Retrieved 13 December 2010.
  3. ↑ "Claude-Louis Berthollet (1748 - 1822)". Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 22 May 2016.
  4. 1 2 http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf
  5. ↑ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 24 June 2011.
  6. ↑ Guyton de Morveau, Louis Bernard; Lavoisier, Antoine Laurent; Berthollet, Claude-Louis; Fourcroy, Antoine-François de (1787). Méthode de Nomenclature Chimique. Paris, France: Chez Cuchet (Sous le Privilége de l’Académie des Sciences).
  7. ↑ "2015 Awardees". American Chemical Society, Division of the History of Chemistry. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign School of Chemical Sciences. 2015. Retrieved 1 July 2016.
  8. ↑ "Citation for Chemical Breakthrough Award" (PDF). American Chemical Society, Division of the History of Chemistry. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign School of Chemical Sciences. 2015. Retrieved 1 July 2016.
  9. ↑ "Napoleon replies: "How comes it, then, that Laplace was an atheist? At the Institute neither he nor Monge, nor Berthollet, nor Lagrange believed in God. But they did not like to say so." Baron Gaspard Gourgaud, Talks of Napoleon at St. Helena with General Baron Gourgaud (1904), page 274.

Further reading

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