François Antoine Henri Descroizilles

François Antoine Henri Descroizilles (born June 11, 1751 in Dieppe in Normandy , † April 15, 1825 in Paris ) was a French pharmacist, chemist and inventor.

Descroizilles came from a family of pharmacists: the first known family member to become a pharmacist, Philippe Descroizilles, had taken his oath of pharmacy in Dieppe in 1639. The father of François Antoine Henri Descroizilles, François Descroizilles (1707–1783) had taken over the pharmacy in 1743 from his brother. François Antoine Henri learned Latin, botany and the basics of pharmacy in Dieppe and was then sent to Paris by his father, where he studied with Hilaire-Marin Rouelle and Louis Jacques Thénard . He graduated as a chemistry teacher in 1777 and passed the pharmacy exam in 1778. He was in Versailles and Rouen, where he opened his own pharmacy in 1787. In 1794 he was inspector for saltpetre and black powder in France. In 1806 he moved to Paris.

Descroizilles is known for his contributions to analytical chemistry and, along with Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Claude-Louis Berthollet and Louis-Nicolas Vauquelin, is one of the founders of titration . In particular, he performed the first redox titration after attending a failed demonstration of the use of sodium hypochlorite in Rouen . He discovered that the concentration of the lye was crucial for the success of chlorine bleaching , and he developed a titration process that was based on the decolouration of an indigo solution with chlorine. In 1806 he used titration with sulfuric acid to determine the potash content (with violet juice as an indicator). He designed a burette for this as early as 1791.

Descroizilles was an official expert for wine counterfeiting and constructed portable devices for analysis (alcohol determination, distillation). He improved the lighthouse of the port city of Dieppe by inventing regular flashing for it. A watchmaker from Dieppe made the mechanism for it; the first lighthouse equipped with it went into operation in May 1787. He also had coffee making machines built in Rouen ; the tinsmith he commissioned founded a company in Paris and made a fortune from the French strainer . Descroizilles, on the other hand, lost large parts of his property towards the end of his life and was close to poverty.

literature

Winfried Pötsch u. a. Lexicon of important chemists , Harri Deutsch 1989

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Clément Duval: François Descroizilles, the Inventor of Volumetric Analysis . In: American Chemical Society ACS (Ed.): Journal of Chemical Education . tape 28 , no. 10 . ACS Publications, October 1951, ISSN 0021-9584 , p. 508-519 , doi : 10.1021 / ed028p508 .
^ ^A ^b Axel Johansson: The development of the titration methods: Some historical annotations . In: Analytica Chimica Acta . tape 206 . Elsevier BV, 1988, ISSN 0003-2670 , p. 97-109 , doi : 10.1016 / s0003-2670 (00) 80834-x .

personal data
SURNAME	Descroizilles, François Antoine Henri
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	French chemist
DATE OF BIRTH	June 11, 1751
PLACE OF BIRTH	Dieppe
DATE OF DEATH	April 15, 1825
Place of death	Paris

[Duval-1] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Clément Duval: François Descroizilles, the Inventor of Volumetric Analysis . In: American Chemical Society ACS (Ed.): Journal of Chemical Education . tape 28 , no. 10 . ACS Publications, October 1951, ISSN 0021-9584 , p. 508-519 , doi : 10.1021 / ed028p508 .

[Johansson1988-2] A ^b Axel Johansson: The development of the titration methods: Some historical annotations . In: Analytica Chimica Acta . tape 206 . Elsevier BV, 1988, ISSN 0003-2670 , p. 97-109 , doi : 10.1016 / s0003-2670 (00) 80834-x .