HENRI VICTOR REGNAULT THE FIRST FATHER OF PVC

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rMIX: Il Portale del Riciclo nell'Economia Circolare - Henri Victor Regnault the First Father of PVC
Summary

- Who is Henri Victor Regnault

- Studies on chemistry

- Chlorination of ethylene

- How he discovered vinyl chloride and polyvinyl chloride

He unknowingly discovered it by working the heated Dutch oil


Henri Victor Regnault is hardly associated with the discovery of PVC, which was attributed in 1872 to the German chemist Eugen Baumann by resuming his experiments.

The scientist French was born on July 21, 1810 in Aix-la-Chapelle, France, and at an early age lost both his parents.

He and his sister were entrusted to a copy, a friend of his parents, who took care of it and followed the school fortunes. After studying chemistry, Regnault decided to travel to Europe to study and experiment in mining sites in Switzerland, Germany and Belgium between 1834 and 1835.

On December 11, 1840, he was appointed by the French Academy of Sciences to professor of chemistry, a position he held for about 30 years.

The scientist devoted himself to the study of substances and their mixtures, creating in thirty years an in-depth collection of data related to the properties of compounds, such as density and compressibility of gases and liquids, heat capacity and coefficients of gas expansion, steam pressures and speed of sound.

These studies lead him to be considered as arguably the greatest experimenter of the nineteenth century.

One of the many researches done, one in particular concerned the study of an oily liquid formed by the chloration of ethylene (then called olephysing gas), which became famous under the name of Dutch liquor.

This compound was first discovered by Dutch chemists Johann Rudolph Deiman, Adrien Paets van Troostwijk, Nicolas Bondt and Anthoni Lauwerenburgh, on whom many chemists of the time later worked on it.

Regnault attempted to decompose Dutch oil by heating it with an alcoholic solution of potassium hydroxide, obtaining the vinyl chloride monomer.

The scientist was not yet clear where his studies were taking him, when he noted the realization of a white powder, which would later be identified as polyvinylchloride (PVC), having left the new compound accidentally exposed to sunlight.

Although the scientific discovery was not attributed to the scientist French there is no doubt that this laid the groundwork for future research and perfection of PVC recipes.

Photo: Pollution chimique

Automatic translation. We apologize for any inaccuracies. Original article in Italian.

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