Jean Baptiste Senderens

Jean Baptiste Senderens (born January 27, 1856 in Barbachen , French Pyrenees , † September 27, 1937 ibid) was a French chemist and priest, known as a pioneer of catalytic hydrogenation in organic chemistry with Paul Sabatier , who received the Nobel Prize for it .

Senderens

Life

Senderens studied from 1880 at the Collège de Garaison (a school of the missionaries of the Immaculate Conception), which he had to interrupt to teach his siblings in his destitute family. Later the friars sent him to their school in Tarascon-sur-Ariège and to the Institut Catholique in Toulouse . In Toulouse he came into contact with the university professor of chemistry Édouard Filhol , which led to a first joint publication in 1881. After graduating in 1883, he became professor at the Institut Catholique and director of the Ecole Superieure de Science, which he founded at the Institut Catholique. At that time he was analyzing the mineral springs of Bagnères de Bigorre and problems of viticulture (methods of generating heat for the vines, remedies against powdery mildew and phylloxera, etc.) In 1888 he received a doctorate in philosophy (probably from the Gregoriana in Rome). In 1892 he received his doctorate in chemistry in Toulouse , which Paul Sabatier had suggested. From 1914 he worked in the industry in Vitry-sur-Seine (in the pharmaceutical company of the Poulenc brothers, with whom he later remained connected) and from 1922 in his own laboratory in his home town of Barbachen.

His collaboration with Sabatier on catalytic hydrogenation began in 1892 and lasted until 1907. First they hydrogenated ethene (with nickel as a catalyst), then benzenes (to cyclohexane) and nitrobenzenes (to cyclohexalamine) and related aromatics, aldehydes, ketones and glycerides (Patent 1903) . The Sabatier process was also developed by both (production of methane from carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide). In 1911 there was a break between the two after Senderens read that Sabatier referred to him as a student and employee during a lecture in Berlin. After Sabatier received the Nobel Prize for their joint work (shared with Victor Grignard ), he tried to get closer, which Senderens also granted him externally. The Nobel Prize to Grignard and Sabatier was the first shared Nobel Prize in chemistry, and Grignard himself regretted that it was not further divided (between Sabatier and Senderens on the one hand and himself with his teacher Philippe Barbier ).

Senderens later experimented with his friend Jean Aboulenc. In the 1920s he was one of the first research directors of the Caisse nationale des Sciences.

From 1907 he dealt with dehydrogenation, using aluminum-containing catalysts, and from 1918 with hydrogenation in the liquid phase.

He also published theological and philosophical writings, particularly on the connection between science and faith.

In 1905 he received the Prix ​​Jecker of the Academie des Sciences with Sabatier. In 1920 he became an honorary member of the Royal Society of Chemistry and in 1922 a corresponding member of the Academie des Sciences. In 1923 he became a Knight of the Legion of Honor.

Two neighboring mountains ( Mount Senderens and Mount Sabatier ) in South Georgia are named after Sabatier and Senderens .

Fonts

• with Duilhé de Saint Projet: Apologie Scientifique de la foi Chrétienne. 1921.
• Création et evolution. Bloud et Gay, 1928.

literature

• Winfried R. Pötsch, Annelore Fischer, Wolfgang Müller: Lexicon of important chemists . In: Lexicon of important chemists . Harri Deutsch, Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-8171-1055-3 .
• Mary Jo Nye : Sciences in the Provinces. Scientific Communities and Provincial Leadership in France 1860–1930 . University of California Press 1986.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Mary Jo Nye: Sciences in the Provinces , University of California Press, 1986, p. 150.