Technical Chemistry

1799   

• Philippe Lebon applies for a patent on the production of coal gas
• Charles Tennant  applies for a patent on the absorption of chlorine gas by dry quicklime. He built a factory in St Rollox for the preparation of bleach. For a long time this factory was the greatest in the world 
• Franz Karl Achard  founds a factory to prepare sugarbeet in Cunern (near Wroclaw)  

150 years ago
1849 

• Steel from Krupp's factory  has been tested
• César Mansuete Despretz  constructs an electric flame furnace with crucible-electrodes
• A P Halliday  in Salford obtains a patent for the preparation of wood-vinegar from sawdust-chips, using oak bark and leached painted wood
• Max von Pettenkofer  prepares woodgas and founds two years later with Ruland and V. Pauli a woodgas-generator for the illumination of the railway station of Munich
• Lenk von Wolfsberg  improves the storage life of guncotton
• Dubrunfaat  and Leplay  try to introduce into practice the desugaration of molasses with baryt
• Jacques Joseph Ebelman  prepares artificial spinels and other minerals by using a strongly heated - evaporated - boric acid solution of these crystals
• Agundre  prepares a "white" gunpowder from potassium chlorate, prussiate of potash and sugar. This had been a very important technological objective in the fireworks industry for a long time.  

100 years ago
1899 

• The Deutsche Ammoniak Werke Gesellschaft  at Cologne extract ammonia from seasilt by dryheating with alkalines or alkaline earths
• Leonhard Lederer  prepares cellulose-acetate by the action of acetic acid hydride on hydrocellulose in presence of sulphuric acid. This cellulose acetate is used for the manufacture of synthetic (artificial) silk (rayon)
• In Oberbruch  near Aachen cellulose threads are made by using the copper oxide - ammoniak - method
• Benjamin Talbot  invents a method to make steel from rough iron
• Harmet  in St Etienne improves the method for solidifying liquid steel by pressing under high pressure
• Charles Eduard Guilaume  prepares an Ni-Fe-alloy "Inver" with a very low expansion coefficient
• Manufacturer Hülsberg  at Frankfurt/Main invents a method for preparing fireproof wood by impregnating with boric acid and a metal ammonium-sulphate
• Mac Dougall  and Howles  try to put into practice the preparation of nitric acid by blowing electric sparks through air
• Herman Frasch  invents a new method for winning sulphur from sulphur-containing gypsum plaster
• Theodor Meyer proposes a better leaden-chamber-process for preparing sulphuric acid
• Aldolph Frank and Nikodem Caro  prepare calcium cyanamide by heating a mixture of carbide and quicklime with carbon in atmospheric nitrogen. This calcium cyanamid would be used as fertilizer (with name: nitrolime)
• Hans Goldschmidt uses "thermit" (a mixture of a metal oxide and aluminium) to produce, eg. iron for railway rails or components for machines
• P Bergsoe in Copenhagen obtains a patent on a method for winning tin from waste of tin plate
• Bayer-Werke produce acetyl salicylic acid under the name "aspirin"
• Paul Sabatier and Jean Baptiste Sendérens  discover catalytic hydrogenation with nickel
• H Heraus melts large quantities of quartz in a oxyhydrogen furnace of iridium at 1850 °C