Viacheslav Tishchenko

Born Aug. 7 (19), 1861, in St. Petersburg; died Feb. 25, 1941, in Leningrad. Soviet chemist. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1935; corresponding member, 1928).

Upon his graduation from the University of St. Petersburg in 1884, Tishchenko became an assistant there to D. I. Mendeleev. Beginning in 1891, he lectured on various areas of chemical technology and analytical chemistry at the university, which later became Leningrad University. In 1934 he became director of a scientific research institute at Leningrad State University.

Tishchenko’s research dealt mainly with the composition of turpentine oils, soft resin, bottom resin, fir balsam, and white acetone oil. He proposed an industrial method of synthesizing camphor from turpentine and in the late 1890’s he developed a formula for laboratory glassware that is still important. Tishchenko designed a new type of vessel, which bears his name, for washing and drying gases. Also named in his honor is the reaction he discovered, which he described in 1906 in his doctoral dissertation, “On the Action of Aluminum Alcoholates on Aldehydes.” The technology for producing iodine from marine algae, as well as methods for obtaining a number of chemically pure reagents, was developed under his direction in the period 1914–18. Tishchenko and his co-workers also proposed a method for preparing paint for porcelain (“liquid gold”). He was awarded the State Prize of the USSR in 1941.