Today marks the 180th anniversary of the birth of William Henry Perkin (1838-1907 William Henry Perkin), who accidentally discovered how to produce purple dye from waste products of the coal industry when he was looking for a way to synthesize quinine - the well-known malaria drug. Parkin who founded an industry based on the substance after he failed to sell it to franchisees, thereby giving birth to the science-based industry in general, and the pharmaceutical industry in particular
While trying to produce quinine - the well-known anti-malarial drug extracted from the bark of the quinine tree, William Henry Perkin (1838-1907 William Henry Perkin) unintentionally synthesized the violet dye aniline known today as mauve - the earliest synthetic dye. Parkin's discovery created the basis for a new chemical industry, and eventually the pharmaceutical industry as well.
It was in 1856 when he was only 18 years old, when he was on Easter vacation from the Royal College of Chemistry in London, where he produced the purple dye aniline, from chemicals derived from tar.
Like Friedrich Waller's experiments, which resulted in the accidental synthesis of urea, Parkine's chemical manipulations were designed to produce quinine. Parkin's teacher, August Hoffmann, one of Justus von Liebig's former students, proposed to synthesize the antimalarial drug, which at the time was derived only from the bark of the cinchona tree, which grew mainly in plantations in Southeast Asia. According to Hoffmann's recommendation and with the financial support of his father, a building contractor, Parkin commercializes his surprising discovery in 1857 he opened the factory in Greenford Green, not far from London.
In fact, he was forced to produce the material he synthesized himself because he was unable to sell licenses for the process. The opening of the factory and the surprising demand for mauve in 1859 marked the beginning of the growth of the organic chemical industry of the day. The search throughout Europe for new dyes brought prestige to science and changed the way research is done both in academia and in industrial laboratories. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the production of mauve provided an opportunity to test the years of what later became a science-based industry.
From this humble beginning grew the organic chemistry industry - both the one that synthesizes colors but more importantly - its relative - the pharmaceutical industry that improved the quality of life of the entire population. These two industries also stimulated the search for a better understanding of the structure of molecules. Parkin sold his business at age 36 so he could devote himself to research, which included early investigations into the ability of some organic chemicals to rotate polarized light, a property used to examine questions of molecular structure.
As far as we know, purple was the most fashionable color for clothing starting in the mid-fifties of the 19th century. The new product replaced processes used by textile printers in France that were not suitable for the urban environment and was created from materials that were by-products of the coal and gas industries. From the end of 1858, the analilan was adapted for printing on cotton, mainly in France. The use of cotton was much more profitable than the widely used silk, but the preparation of the dye required fixatives based on albumin or lectin, as suggested by Parkin and Fuller. Unlike the French, British dye manufacturers continued to express opposition to the use of aniline. Only after Parkin visited their factories and demonstrated to them how to use the color he had developed, Parkin's purple color was also adopted in his homeland - mainly in Leicester and Scotland. The color became the main fashionable color of aristocratic women in Britain and France. The purple shade was called mauve by the British textile manufacturers and Parkin himself named its main component Mauveine in 1863, but its exact composition was only discovered in 1994.
In 1859, a red shade of alanine was also discovered by treating alanine with an oxidizer, as in Perkin's initial discovery. The preferred fixative was arsenic acid. The red color is called fuchsine in France and magenta in Britain, today one of the basic colors in ink printers.
In 1897, the companies BASF and Hochst in Germany created the mass production process of synthetic indigo based on Parkin's process. Four years later, René Bohn, a chemist working at BASF, improved the inido dye so that it would survive harsher conditions in a process known as indanthrene dyes that made the color fade less in strong sunlight. The market for this product in America was much larger than in Europe. By the end of the 19th century the long industry had adopted the process based on intermediate materials based on coal and tar. These processes were also found to be good for the use of drugs such as Bayer's aspirin, which was produced using salicylic acid. These substances were also used to protect the body against epidemics. With the beginning of the 20th century, the German-led paint industry became known as a science-based industry. After that, the method was adopted by American manufacturers, including Du Point.
Today the colors are produced in places like India, China, Japan and Eastern Europe. The main use for aniline is for the production of polyurethane.
Parkin Medal (Perkin Medal) is an award given annually by the American branch of the British Society for the Advancement of the Chemical Industry (Society of Chemical Industry). The medal is awarded to an American resident scientist for "innovation in the field of applied chemistry that has resulted in exceptional commercial development".
The medal was first awarded in 1906 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the discovery of "aniline purple", the first synthetic aniline dye. This is in honor of the visit to the United States of Sir William Henry Perkin (William Henry Perkin), the owner of the invention. The medal has been awarded annually since 1908.
Based on the article MAUVE AND ITS ANNIVERSARIES From 2007 by Anthony S. Travis, Edelstein Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem/Leo Baeck Institute London on the University of Illinois website, where you can delve deeper into the chemistry of the discovery and the part of Jewish chemists in the history of this industry.
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