Sven-Olov Lawesson (9 September 1926, in

Bräcke Bräcke is a locality and the seat of Bräcke Municipality in Jämtland County, Sweden with 1,651 inhabitants in 2010. The community is located next to Lake Revsundssjön, 70 km south-east of Östersund. The railway has been an importan ...

, Sweden – 5 March 1985) was a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

chemist known for his popularization of

Lawesson's reagent Lawesson's reagent (LR) is a chemical compound used in organic synthesis as a thiation agent. Lawesson's reagent was first made popular by Sven-Olov Lawesson, who did not, however, invent it. Lawesson's reagent was first made in 1956 during a sys ...

within the chemical community. He is also known for his 1982 work exploring the possibility of a connection between recreational use of amyl nitrite and an increased incidence of Kaposi's sarcoma in

homosexual Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peop ...

men. Lawesson obtained his education at Uppsala University. He did most of his work at the University of Aarhus in Denmark and his last paper was published in 1986. After finding that 2,4-bis(4-methoxyphenyl)-1,3,2,4-dithiadiphosphetane 2,4-disulfide was useful for some reactions, Lawesson undertook a general survey of the reactivity of organic compounds with this reagent. It is often named after him as Lawesson's reagent. The synthesis of thioketones is his most cited paper. At one point S. O. Lawesson worked with the chemist N. M. Yousif. After Lawesson's death, Yousif has been working in Egypt and has been very active within the phosphorus

sulfur Sulfur (or sulphur in British English) is a chemical element with the symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with a chemical formula ...

chemical community. Yousif has published many new reactions of Lawesson's reagent. Prof T. B. Rauchfuss, who is in the United States did some very important work on Lawesson's reagent. He did the ³¹P NMR experiment which proved that Lawesson's reagent could form the dithiophosphine

ylide An ylide or ylid () is a neutral dipolar molecule containing a formally negatively charged atom (usually a carbanion) directly attached to a heteroatom with a formal positive charge (usually nitrogen, phosphorus or sulfur), and in which both atoms h ...

s in solution.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lawesson, Sven-Olov 1926 births 1985 deaths Uppsala University alumni Place of birth missing Place of death missing Swedish chemists Swedish expatriates in Denmark 20th-century Swedish people