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.