François-Emmanuel Verguin

François-Emmanuel Verguin (born April 5, 1814 in Lyon , † November 3, 1864 in Hyères ) was a French chemist. He synthesized fuchsine and recognized its use as a textile dye, which is why he is one of the founders of the tar color industry.

Verguin worked in an acid factory (by Perrin) from the age of 15 and, on the recommendation of his boss, studied chemistry at the Medical Faculty in Lyon. He became an assistant there and at the Lycée Royale in Lyon and from 1855 worked for the Lyon druggist Raffard in building a factory for the yellow silk dye picric acid . He synthesized fuchsine (oxidation of impure aniline with tin tetrachloride) at a relative's castle. Jakub Natanson and August Wilhelm von Hofmann had already succeeded in doing this in other ways, but they did not recognize its importance as a textile dye. Verguin was already ill at that time (1858) and sold the invention to the Renard brothers' dye works in Lyon, who were granted a patent in 1859.

As early as 1859, the “Chemical Industry in Basel” started the first large-scale fuchsine production in Europe. German companies that were also able to bypass the patent followed from 1860.

literature

• Entry in Winfried Pötsch, Annelore Fischer, Wolfgang Müller: Lexicon of important chemists, Harri Deutsch 1989