Francesco Selmi

Francesco Selmi (born April 7, 1817 in Vignola near Modena , † August 13, 1881 in Bologna ) was an Italian chemist.

Selmi obtained his master's degree as a pharmacist in Modena in 1837 and became a professor in Modena in 1840 and then at the Lyceum in Reggio. Because of his participation in the revolution of 1848 he was banished from the Duchy of Modena and became professor of physical chemistry at the Collegio nazionale in Turin. When the Duke of Modena was deposed in the Italian War of Independence in 1859 and the duchy joined the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont after a referendum, he was one of the people who brought the news to Turin. In 1859 he became rector of the University of Modena. After the establishment of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, he was head of department in the Ministry of Education in Turin, during which time he also studied Dante and frequented the salon of Olimpia Savio . He was in correspondence with Cavour . In 1867 he left politics and became professor of toxicology and pharmaceutical chemistry in Bologna.

He is one of the founders of colloid chemistry . In 1842 he came across a colloidal solution when he reacted iron (III) sulfate with sulfuric acid, then systematically investigated other inorganic colloids (such as silver chloride, Prussian blue ), recognized that albumin and casein are colloids and investigated the osmotic pressure of colloids. He also dealt with cadaveric poisons, on which he published a monograph (1878) and was therefore also a pioneer of forensic toxicology, dealt with mixed crystals and isomorphism and, with Icilio Guareschi, was the editor of the Enciclopedia di Chimica scientifica e industriale .

With Sobrero he also produced the first inorganic compound with tetravalent lead ( lead tetrachloride ) without being able to isolate the very unstable compound. They only concluded that chlorine existed when chlorine was introduced into a solution of sodium chloride and lead, which then turned yellow and, according to their analysis, was a mixture of sodium chloride and lead tetrachloride.

literature

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