John Harrison (chemist)

John Harrison

John Harrison (born December 17, 1773 in Philadelphia , † 1833 ) was an American industrial chemist.

He was the sixth son of Thomas Harrison (* around 1640; from Stoneraise, Castle Sowerby, Cumberland County, England) and Sarah Richards. John Harrison married Lydia Leib, daughter of Johann Georg Leib and his wife Dorothy, with whom he had eight children.

Harrision trained in the drugstore of the chemist Townsend Speakman , who invented the soft drink Nephite Julep , and then studied for two years in Europe with Joseph Priestley (who moved to Philadelphia in 1794).

In 1793 he started the first production of sulfuric acid in his pharmacy. In 1806 John Harrison & Sons was already producing 20 tons. In the following year he started up production capacities of 250 t / a, which exceeded the requirements of the USA. In 1813, Justus Erich Bollmann developed a platinum-based distillation process using a platinum processing method developed by William Hyde Wollaston to produce highly concentrated acid. Harrison was the first to use this technique and operated the plant with the first still until 1828.

After John Harrison's death, his sons Thomas Harrison (1805–1900), Michael Leib Harrison (1807–1881) and George Leib Harrison (1811–1885) took over the company under the name Harrison Brothers & Company . In the next generation, John Skelton Harrison, Thomas Skelton Harrison and Georg Leib Harrison (1836–1935) joined the company. In 1918 the company was taken over by DuPont for $ 5.7 million.

Individual evidence

↑ kennethwmilano.com: John Harrison
↑ Gerald Kutney: Sulfur: History, Technology, Applications & Industry . ChemTec Publishing, Toronto 2007, ISBN 978-1-895198-37-9 , pp. 12 ( text in Google Book search).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Harrison, John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American industrial chemist
DATE OF BIRTH	December 17, 1773
PLACE OF BIRTH	Philadelphia
DATE OF DEATH	1833

[1] thwmilano.com: John Harrison

[2] Gerald Kutney: Sulfur: History, Technology, Applications & Industry . ChemTec Publishing, Toronto 2007, ISBN 978-1-895198-37-9 , pp. 12 ( text in Google Book search).