Lvov, Mikhail Dmitrievich

Born Oct. 10 (22), 1848, in Saratov; died Mar. 31 (Apr. 12), 1899, in St. Petersburg. Russian chemist. Student and closest associate of A. M. Butlerov.

L’vov graduated from the University of St. Petersburg in 1871, and most of his subsequent activities were connected with the university. In 1896 he became a professor at the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology. L’vov was the first to synthesize (1870) neopentane and compare the properties of all three pentane isomers. He also investigated chlorination, oxidation, polymerization, and other reactions involving unsaturated organic compounds. In 1883 he discovered that the chlorination of ethylene hydrocarbons yields unsaturated allyl chlorides and studied this reaction in detail. The reaction is now used in the industrial synthesis of glycerin.