
Théophile-Jules Pelouze (also known as Jules Pelouze), ; 26 February 180731 May 1867) was a French
chemist
A chemist (from Greek ''chÄ“m(Ãa)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of ...
.
Life
He was born at
Valognes, and died in Paris.
His father, Edmond Pelouze, was an industrial chemist and the author of several technical handbooks. The son, after spending some time in a pharmacy at
La Fère acted as laboratory assistant to
Gay-Lussac and
Jean Louis Lassaigne at Paris from 1827 to 1829. In 1830 he was appointed associate professor of chemistry at
Lille
Lille (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city in the northern part of France, within French Flanders. Positioned along the Deûle river, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, region, the Prefectures in F ...
, but returning to Paris next year became ''repetiteur'', and subsequently professor at the
École polytechnique
(, ; also known as Polytechnique or l'X ) is a ''grande école'' located in Palaiseau, France. It specializes in science and engineering and is a founding member of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris.
The school was founded in 1794 by mat ...
. He also held the chair of chemistry at the
Collège de France, and in 1833 became assayer to the mint and in 1848 president of the ''Commission des Monnaies''.
After
the coup d'état in 1851 he resigned his appointments, but continued to conduct an experimental laboratory-school he had started in 1846.
There he worked with the explosive material
guncotton
Nitrocellulose (also known as cellulose nitrate, flash paper, flash cotton, guncotton, pyroxylin and flash string, depending on form) is a highly flammable compound formed by nitrating cellulose through exposure to a mixture of nitric acid and ...
and other
nitrosulphates. His student
Ascanio Sobrero was the discoverer of
nitroglycerin
Nitroglycerin (NG) (alternative spelling nitroglycerine), also known as trinitroglycerol (TNG), nitro, glyceryl trinitrate (GTN), or 1,2,3-trinitroxypropane, is a dense, colorless or pale yellow, oily, explosive liquid most commonly produced by ...
(1847), and another student,
Alfred Nobel, was to take that discovery on to great heights in the form of commercial explosives including
dynamite
Dynamite is an explosive made of nitroglycerin, sorbents (such as powdered shells or clay), and Stabilizer (chemistry), stabilizers. It was invented by the Swedish people, Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in Geesthacht, Northern German ...
. He was a major inspiration for both students.
Though Pelouze made no discovery of outstanding importance, he was a busy investigator, his work including researches on
salicin
Salicin is an alcoholic β-glucoside. Salicin is produced in (and named after) willow (''Salix'') bark. It is a biosynthetic precursor to salicylaldehyde.
Salicin hydrolyses into Glucose, β-d-glucose and salicyl alcohol (saligenin). Salicyl al ...
, on
beetroot sugar, on various organic acids (
gallic,
malic,
tartaric,
butyric,
lactic, etc.), on
oenanthic ether (with Liebig), on the nitrosulphates, on guncotton, and on the composition and manufacture of glass.
He also carried out determinations of the
atomic weight
Relative atomic mass (symbol: ''A''; sometimes abbreviated RAM or r.a.m.), also known by the deprecated synonym atomic weight, is a dimensionless physical quantity defined as the ratio of the average mass of atoms of a chemical element in a giv ...
s of several elements, and with
Edmond Frémy, published ''Traité de chimie générale'' (1847–1850); ''Abrégé de chimie'' (1848); and ''Notions générales de chimie'' (1853).
His son Eugène-Philippe Pelouze married , a rich heiress, in 1857. The couple purchased the
Château de Chenonceau in 1864. Marguerite continued to live there until 1888, when she ran out of money and was forced to sell.
[James David Draper; Edouard Papet (2014). ''The Passions of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux'']
p. 226–227
Yale University Press. .
His name is one of the
72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pelouze, Theophile-Jules
1807 births
1867 deaths
People from Manche
19th-century French chemists
Burials at Montmartre Cemetery
Commanders of the Legion of Honour
Members of the French Academy of Sciences