Heinrich Wilhelm von Struve (russian: Генрих Васильевич Струве, tr. ; 10 July 1822 – 28 March 1908) was a Baltic German chemist from the

Struve family The Struve family (pronounced in German, in Russian) were a Baltic German noble family of Eastphalian origin and originated in Magdeburg, the family produced five generations of astronomers from the 18th to 20th centuries. Members of the family ...

and a member of the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...

. Struve was born in 1822 in Dorpat (Tartu), then

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

. His father was the Russian astronomer Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve (1793-1864) of German origins. Bernhard Wilhelm Struve (1827-1889), governor of Astrakhan and Perm, was his brother. The German mathematician and pedagogue Jacob Struve (1755-1841) was his grandfather. In 1845, he graduated from the University of Tartu and continued working there in the field of chemistry till 1849. In 1846, via arrangement by his father Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve, Genrikh spent a month visiting

Jöns Jacob Berzelius Baron Jöns Jacob Berzelius (; by himself and his contemporaries named only Jacob Berzelius, 20 August 1779 – 7 August 1848) was a Swedish chemist. Berzelius is considered, along with Robert Boyle, John Dalton, and Antoine Lavoisier, to be on ...

who was impressed with both the father and his son. In 1849, Struve moved to the Mineralogy Department in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

and worked there till 1867. In 1867, he became a criminal medicine expert in

Tiflis Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of approximately 1.5 million pe ...

.V. K. Abalkin ''et al.'
Struve dynasty
(in Russian), St. Petersburg University There, he used not only chemical, but also early photographical (1885) methods for criminal analysis. He had also participated in the chemical analysis of mineral springs of the area, in particular of the Matsesta spring in

Sochi Sochi ( rus, Со́чи, p=ˈsotɕɪ, a=Ru-Сочи.ogg) is the largest resort city in Russia. The city is situated on the Sochi River, along the Black Sea in Southern Russia, with a population of 466,078 residents, up to 600,000 residents in ...

in 1886. Struve married Pauline Fuss, a great-granddaughter of

Leonhard Euler Leonhard Euler ( , ; 15 April 170718 September 1783) was a Swiss mathematician, physicist, astronomer, geographer, logician and engineer who founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made pioneering and influential discoveries in ma ...

.Pauline Fuss was the daughter of mathematician Paul Heinrich von Fuss (1798-1855), who was the son of

Nicolas Fuss Nicolas Fuss (29 January 1755 – 4 January 1826), also known as Nikolai Fuss, was a Swiss mathematician, living most of his life in Imperial Russia. Biography Fuss was born in Basel, Switzerland. He moved to Saint Petersburg to serve as a mathe ...

(1755-1826) and his wife Albertine Benedikte Philippine Luise Euler (1766-1822). Albertine Euler was the daughter of Leonhard Euler's eldest son Johann Albrecht Euler (1734-1800) and his wife Anna Sophie Charlotte Hagemeister. Scientific work of Struve was mostly related to inorganic and analytical chemistry. In 1853, he published first in Russia tables for evaluating chemical analyses. The same year, he suggested use of ammonium molybdate for detection of

arsenic Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As and atomic number 33. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in combination with sulfur and metals, but also as a pure elemental crystal. Arsenic is a metalloid. It has various allotropes, but ...

in criminal medicine and in mineral analysis, such as indicating traces of arsenic in

antimony Antimony is a chemical element with the symbol Sb (from la, stibium) and atomic number 51. A lustrous gray metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite (Sb2S3). Antimony compounds have been known since ancient time ...

. He also synthesized a range of double salts of

potassium Potassium is the chemical element with the symbol K (from Neo-Latin ''kalium'') and atomic number19. Potassium is a silvery-white metal that is soft enough to be cut with a knife with little force. Potassium metal reacts rapidly with atmosphe ...

sodium Sodium is a chemical element with the symbol Na (from Latin ''natrium'') and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal. Sodium is an alkali metal, being in group 1 of the periodic table. Its only stable iso ...

chromium Chromium is a chemical element with the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in group 6. It is a steely-grey, lustrous, hard, and brittle transition metal. Chromium metal is valued for its high corrosion resistance and hardne ...

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...

aluminium Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. I ...

molybdenum Molybdenum is a chemical element with the symbol Mo and atomic number 42 which is located in period 5 and group 6. The name is from Neo-Latin ''molybdaenum'', which is based on Ancient Greek ', meaning lead, since its ores were confused with lea ...

and

tungsten Tungsten, or wolfram, is a chemical element with the symbol W and atomic number 74. Tungsten is a rare metal found naturally on Earth almost exclusively as compounds with other elements. It was identified as a new element in 1781 and first isolat ...

. In 1876, Struve became a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.Струве
in Большая Энциклопедия (Great encyclopedia), SoyuzknigaСтруве Генрих Васильевич (Генрих Вильгельм)
(in Russian)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Struve, Genrikh Chemists from the Russian Empire

Genrikh Genrikh ( cyrl, Генрих) is a masculine Russian given name derived from the Germanic name Heinrich, a variant of Henry. Notable people with the name include: *Genrich Altshuller (1926–1998), Soviet engineer, inventor and scientist, journalis ...

1822 births 1908 deaths People from Tartu University of Tartu alumni Baltic-German people