Famous Chemistry Inventions and Laboratory Safety

Famous Chemistry Inventions and Laboratory Safety by Dr. Anand S. Burange

1. By
Dr. Anand S. Burange
Ph.D. (ICT, Mumbai), CSIR-NET, GATE,
CSIR-Nehru PDF (NCL, Pune), CSIR-RA
Asst. Professor in Chemistry
Wilson College, Mumbai
6
th
January 2018
Famous Chemistry Inventions and Laboratory Safety

2. Discovery and Invention
Act of finding or
exploring something
which already existed
but not perceived
before.
Creation or designing
of an item or a
process which has
never been existed
before
Discovery
Invention

3. What is Serendipity?
Serendipity is an accidental discovery. In history, there are various
fascinating stories of accidental discoveries. But serendipity doesn’t happen
with everyone, it needs…
curious mind
fine observer

4. Chemistry Inventions that changed the world

5. Acrylic Paint
Otto Röhm during
his Ph.D. studied
acrylic paints (1901).
Thesis Title:
Polymerization
Products of Acrylic
Acid
(He was originally
trained as a
pharmacist
assistant).
❖ Otto and Haas cofounded a company and
started selling Shatter Proof acrylic glass (Trade
names: Plexiglass® , Perspex® and Lucite). US
started manufacturing 10,000 air crafts every
year all with plexiglass canopies.
Plexiglass canopies
Röhm and Haas had
worked in area of acrylics
for decades but they did not
invent the acrylic paints.
Acrylic paints

6. Leonard Bocour (1941): Acrylic Paints
❖ Bocour used to prepare and sale oil paints
to artists. He observed that use of acrylic
sample makes colour more white. He started
working with Röhm and Haas company and
began selling first acrylic paint “Magna.”
IT WAS THE FIRST BIG CHANGE IN PAINT TECHNOLOGY
SINCE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
❖ Acrylic paint has several advantages
over oil paints (dries faster ; can be applied
on variety of materials like paper, card,
canvas board, etc.)
❖ Röhm and Haas in 1953 again
introduced water based acrylic paints useful
for interior walls.
Chemical Composition
Paint is composed of pigment,
binder (resin), solvent and
additives.
Binder:Methyl methacrylate

7. Aerogel
Aerogel was invented
by Steven S. Kistler, a
chemical engineer
from the college of
Pacific California in
1931.
❖Gel is a solid or semi solid (jelly like) stage of a colloidal
solution bearing honey comb like structure. It can be converted
into sol (liquid state of colloidal solution) on heating.
❖ From the gel, if liquid is completely removed and replaced by
an air then it gives an aerogel. (Sometimes called frozen
smoke).
❖ Kistler was doing acidic condensation of sodium silicate, after
formation of gel he managed to stop volume reduction by
replacing water by low surface tension alcohol and finally got an
Aerogel.

8. Aerogel and NASA
The National Aeronautics and
Space Administration
❖ In 1970s French Rocket engineers observed
that an aerogel with 99% air as a thermal
insulator and safe storage medium for rocker
fuels.
❖ Aerogel was used by NASA’s Stardust
Program. (The primary aim of the stardust
mission was to collect samples of a comet)
❖ Among various aerogels, silica aerogel is
cheaper and prepared from
tetramethylorthosilicate, base and methanol.
Stardust robotic space probe Structure of tetramethylorthosilicate

9. Anesthesia (2000 B.C.E.)
❖ During pregnancy, ancient Egyptians discovered
that use of Opium could help to ease the pain while
Assyrians (people of middle east for example Syria,
Iraq, etc) used painkilling mixtures of belladonna,
cannabis and mandrake root.
❖ Medieval Arabs developed a form of inhalation
anesthesia.
Opium
Cannabis
❖The rise of modern anaesthesia was seen in 18
th

century when Joseph Priestley isolate nitrous oxide.

10. Euphoria
N
2O shows euphoria
Impatient Dentist
Halothane: Current Anaesthetic

11. Atomic Bomb
❖ MOTIVATION: Scientists who escaped from the Nazi
regime had revealed that Germany had confirmed the
theoretical possibility of atomic bomb.
❖ In 1939, in fear of Nazis (weapon may developed),
Einstein and others wrote a letter to President
Franklin D. Roosevelt and warned him about need of
atomic research.
Manhattan Project
US $ 2 billion; ultrasecret development research program.
In 1942, Robert Oppenheimer was appointed as Project Scientific
Director.

12. TRINITY
Manhattan Project
To first man made explosion, Oppenhemer called ‘Trinity’ and testing was done on
16
th
July 1945 at Alamgordo, New Mexico.
Trinity: Code name for first detonation
atomic bomb
Nuclear fission chain reactions of
U-235 or
Pu-239 used in atomic bombing.

13. Catalytic Converter
Eugene Houdry, a French mechanical engineer known for a process of cracking/
Hundry process also invented first catalytic converter in 1956.
Three way catalytic converter
In 1970s, US Environmental
protecting Agency set strict
emssion control standards and
in 1974 first cars with catalytic
converter were produced. In
1985, it was adapted in Europe.
Unfortunately, catalytic
converters were not used until
after Houdry’s death.
Burange et al. Molecular Catalysis 2018 455, 1-5

14. Epoxy Resin
Epoxy resin (originally used for dental fixtures) is
the adhesive of choice and used in holding bits of
aircrafts together and rotor blades of wind turbine.
Epoxy resins are resistant to heat and chemicals
and some are water proof too.
Swiss Chemist, Pierre Castan and Americal Sylvan
Greenlee both filed patent independently at the
same time in 1936.
Wind turbine
Biggest market for epoxy resin is a protective
coating.
Epichlorohydrin
Bisphenol A

15. Teflon Serendipity
The story of Teflon began
April 6, 1938, at the
Chemours Jackson
Laboratory of Dupont. Dr.
Roy J. Plunkett, was
working with gases related
to Freon refrigerants, while
Upon checking a frozen,
compressed sample of
tetrafluoroethylene, he and
his associates discovered
that the sample had
polymerized spontaneously
into a white, waxy solid to
form polytetrafluoroethylene
(PTFE)
PTFE

16. Non-stick Pans: Role of wife
Mark Gregoire (French engineer) succesfully found out ways to coat PTFE on
Aluminium base appliances.
Mark shared with his wife his finding that non
sticky nature was observed on coating PTFE on
aluminium based materials. His wife, Colette
asked him to coat it on her cooking pans…
It worked well… Patent filed in 1954
Mark and Colette Invention: Formed company
Tefal (Teflon + Aluminium).
By 1958 they sold one million non stick items
from their company.
LESSON: ALWAYS LISTEN TO WIFE

17. Saccharin
Structure of Saccharine
On 27
th
Feb 1879, Ira Ramsen and C. Fahlberg from
John Hopkins University got saccharin while working
with oxidation of o-toluenesulphonamide.
Work was published in 1880 and Fahlberg alone
patented it.
Serendipity : Food was sweet (Unwashed hands)
It is calorie free artificial
sweetener. Its safety has
always been in controversy.
ANYBODY WHO SAYS
SACCHARIN IS
INJURIOUS TO HEALTH
IS AN IDIOT
President :T. Roosevelt
Controversies
1970s Rat feds with large amount of saccharin found to developed a risk of bladder cancer;
but few scientists argued its due to impurities in saccharin.
2000 Bill Clinton signed a bill to remove warning label from saccharin products.

18. Saccharin synthesis

19. Dynamite
1846 Italian chemist Ascnio Sobrero
discovered that nitrating glycerin, he could
make a fearsomely explosive.
Alfred Nobel took a dangerous and risky task
of converting nitro-glycerin into marketable
product.
1864 One of the explosions killed his brother
and workers at family’s factory. Later he
successfully combined nitroglycerin with
mercury fulminate but due to some more
accidents and risks the product was banned.
Nitro-glycerin
1866 Mixture of nitroglycerin
with diatomaceous earth (a
chalk like sedimentary rock)
was successful named as
Dynamite (Power in Greek).
In 1867 Dynamite was patented. “Era of high explosives.’

20. Merchant of death
In 1888, Alfred Nobel was shocked when read his
premature obituary in which he was described as a
“merchant of death”
This may motivated him to leave his all fortune for NOBEL
PRIZE.

21. Laboratory Safety

22. Seveso Disaster (1976): Industrial accident
Chemical Accident occurred at small Italian town
Meda. The cloud of poison covered 6 Km long and
1Km wide area (Company name : Icmesa.). One
of the company branch was also located in
Seveso.
Surprisingly, none of the people near plant were died but it killed few thousands
farm animals and pets.
TCDD
Nitric acid and Acetone can explode vigorously.
DMSO and Perchloric acid react violently.

23. Laboratory safety
Do you keep chemicals in rack in alphabetical order???
Sovents Vs Oxidants
Acids Vs Amines
Use of Solvent cabinets
Use PPEs
Use MSDS sheets

24. Thank you
Email
Office: [email protected]
Personal :[email protected]
This talk is dedicated to my beloved father late. Shri. Sudhakar G. Burange