Eilhardt Mitscherlich

Mitscherlich, Eilhardt

 

Born Jan. 7, 1794, in Neuende; died Aug. 28, 1863, in Berlin. German chemist. Professor at the University of Berlin from 1822.

Mitscherlich discovered the phenomena of isomorphism (1819) and dimorphism (1821). In 1833 he obtained benzene in pure form by heating benzoic acid with an excess of lime and was the first to prepare nitrobenzene and azobenzene, as well as certain benzene sulfonic acids. Also in 1833, he suggested that sulfuric acid acts as a catalyst in the esterification process and proposed the designation of similar reactions by the term “contact.” Mitscherlich became a corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in 1829.

References in periodicals archive ?
German chemist Eilhardt Mitscherlich had studied these two compounds and found that they have almost identical chemical characteristics--the same atomic weight, the same number and types of atoms--with only one important difference.
Louis Pasteur: a light that brightens more and more
As Emerson learned from John Herschel's 1830 Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, crystallography was emerging as a method for ascertaining the atomic nature of matter (9) According to Herschel, in the late eighteenth century Hauy theorized that crystals are comprised of "integral molecules" that aggregate into larger crystalline shapes according to mathematical rules, (10) Forwarding this theory, Hauy betrayed a Newtonian heritage--he assumes that matter is made of atoms that combine mechanically--that Eilhardt Mitscherlich would later attempt to correct through a more intense attention to chemistry.
Thoreau, crystallography, and the science of the transparent
Likewise, even though he criticized Hauy for ignoring the chemistry of crystals, Eilhardt Mitscherlich assumed that crystals are comprised of "particles or atoms." For Mitscherlich, crystals assume different shapes not through the agency of a set number of primitive molecules but rather by way of different chemical compositions.
Emersonian transparency and the anatomy of crystal
Encyclopedia browser ?
Full browser ?