Charles Friedel

Friedel, Charles 

Born Mar. 12, 1832, in Strasbourg; died Apr. 20, 1899, in Montauban. French organic chemist and mineralogist. Member of the Paris Academy of Sciences (1878). Frie-del graduated from the University of Strasbourg in 1852. Beginning in 1876, he was a professor at the University of Paris.

Friedel was the first to synthesize a number of organic compounds: lactic acid, from bromopropionic acid (1861); secondary propyl alcohol (1862) and glycerine, from acetone (1873); melis-sic acid (1880); and mesocamphoric acid (1889). Between 1863 and 1870 he collaborated with J. Crafts in studying organic silicon compounds; he established the tetravalence of silicon (and titanium) and discovered the similarity of certain silicon compounds to carbon compounds. He was codiscoverer of the Friedel-Crafts reaction. He artificially produced quartz, tridymite, rutile, topaz, and other minerals and studied the pyroelectricity of crystals.

Friedel was a foreign corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1894).

WORKS

Cours de chimie organique, vols. 1–2. Paris, 1886–87.
Cours de minéralogie. Paris, 1893.

REFERENCE

Hanriot, M. M. “Notice sur la vie et les travaux de Charles Friedel.” Bulletin de la Société chimique de Paris, 1900, series 3, vol. 23, pp. 1–56. (References.)