Mr. Mauve

[Henry Musikar]

March 12, 1838: William Henry Perkin is born.	
"As an 18-year old chemistry student, he will synthesize an artificial dye in the purplish range. It will change the way we live. 

Talk about your spring-break project! Perkin was a student at the Royal College of Chemistry in London in 1856. While at home in the East End of London during Easter vacation, he was experimenting on chemicals that could be made from coal tar. 

Though this was an area of special interest for his professor, Wilhelm Hofmann, it was not without risk. Just a year before, another Hofmann student was burned to death when he tried to extract benzene from coal tar and his still caught fire. 

Perkin's project was to make a synthetic version of quinine. He hoped to take the new coal-tar derivative allyl toluidine, add two oxygen atoms and — voila — a low-cost and profitable treatment for malaria. Many of Britain's far-flung colonies and dominions, you will remember, were in tropical climes and hence ridden with the debilitating and often deadly ailment. 

But it was not to be. Perkin got nothing more than a brown tar. He tried again with a different coal-tar derivative, aniline. Black tar this time. Quinine, it turned out, would not be synthesized until 1944. 

Perkin, however, discovered something very interesting. When he treated the black gunk with alcohol, he got a lovely, rich purple dye."

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2009/03/dayintech_0312 


Henry Mu

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