Demianov, Nikolai

Dem’ianov, Nikolai Iakovlevich 

Born Mar. 15 (27), 1861, in Tver’, now Kalinin; died Mar. 19, 1938, in Moscow. Soviet organic chemist. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1929: corresponding member, 1924).

Dem’ianov graduated from Moscow University in 1886 and began his scientific activities under the direction of V. V. Markovnikov. In 1887 he began working at the Petrovskoe Agricultural Academy, becoming a professor in 1894. In 1935 he became head of a laboratory at the Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

In 1895, Dem’ianov developed a general method for obtaining normal saturated glycols and unsaturated alcohols and their isomeric oxides of the gamma and beta series. In 1899 he established that by the action of N₂O₅ on unsaturated hydrocarbons one obtained nitrates of glycols and the addition products N₂O₃, N₂O₄, and N₂O₅. He was the first to obtain and study in detail methylcyclopropane. In investigations begun in 1901, Dem’ianov and his associates discovered (1903) the rearrangement that has come to be called the Dem’ianov arrangement. Together with his students he compiled a handbook on the chemistry of plants, the analysis of vegetable matter, and agronomical analysis. He was awarded the V. I. Lenin Prize in 1930 and the A. M. Butlerov Prize in 1924.

WORKS

Sb. izbr. trudov. Moscow-Leningrad, 1936. (With bibliography.)

REFERENCE

Onishchenko, A. S. “N. la. Dem’ianov—klassik sovetskoi khimii.” Uspekhi khimii, 1948, vol. 17, issue 5.