Lavoisier and Berthollet, Chimistes Celebres, Liebig's Extract of Meat Company Trading Card, 1929Claude Louis Berthollet statue in Annecy, France
Claude Louis Berthollet (French pronunciation:[klodlwibɛʁtɔlɛ], 9 December 1748 – 6 November 1822) was a Savoyard-French chemist who became vice president of the French Senate in 1804.[1] He is known for his scientific contributions to the 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.
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.
Berthollet first determined the elemental composition of the gas ammonia, in 1785.
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.
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]
A French High School located in Annecy is named after him (Lycée Claude Louis Berthollet).
1787 copy of "Méthode de Nomenclature Chimique"
Title page of "Méthode de Nomenclature Chimique"
Table of contents for "Méthode de Nomenclature Chimique"
Personal life
Berthollet married Marie Marguerite Baur in 1788.[4] Their son, Amédée-Barthélémy Berthollet, died in 1811 of carbon monoxide poisoning via charcoal-burning suicide in which he had recorded his physiological and psychological experiences as a final scientific contribution before losing consciousness and succumbing to the fumes.[9]
^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.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^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).
^"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.
^"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. Archived(PDF) from the original on 19 September 2016. Retrieved 1 July 2016.
^"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.
N. S. Kurnakow (1925). "Singuläre Punkte chemischer Diagramme. (Dem Andenken CLAUDE-LOUIS BERTHOLLET, 1748–1822)". Zeitschrift für anorganische und allgemeine Chemie. 146 (1): 69–102. doi:10.1002/zaac.19251460105.
Barbara Whitney Keyser (1990). "Between science and craft: The case of berthollet and dyeing". Zeitschrift für anorganische und allgemeine Chemie. 47 (3): 213–260. doi:10.1080/00033799000200211.
Charles Coulston Gillispie (1989). "Scientific Aspects of the French Egyptian Expedition 1798‒1801". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 133 (4): 447–474. JSTOR986871.
