Nikolai Alexandrovich Menshutkin

Nikolai Menschutkin

Nikolai Alexandrowitsch Menshutkin , Russian Николай Александрович Меншуткин (born October 24, 1842 in Saint Petersburg , † February 5, 1907 ibid) was a Russian chemist.

Menschutkin was the son of a merchant and from 1859 studied natural sciences - especially chemistry - at the University of Saint Petersburg . After receiving his doctorate in 1862 (candidate title), he continued studying in Tübingen, Paris and Marburg. In 1865 he was back at the University of St. Petersburg, received his master's degree in 1866, was a lecturer in analytical chemistry and qualified as a professor in 1869 (Russian doctorate).

On March 6, 1869, Menschutkin gave a lecture for his teacher Mendeleev at the congress of the Russian Chemical Society. The title is: "The dependence of the chemical properties of the elements on the atomic weight". The periodic table of the elements was presented to the public for the first time. Mendeleev himself was unable to attend that evening, but he (together with Lothar Meyer ) deserves the glory of discovering the periodic table.

After his habilitation he became professor for technical and analytical chemistry and from 1886 also for organic chemistry at the university. From 1902 he was also a professor at the Polytechnic.

He investigated the dependence of the reaction rate and yield in the esterification on the structure of the alcohols and acids involved. He extended this to other organic reactions and found that the reaction rate depends on the solvent (see influence of solvents ). He is also known for the Menschutkin reaction for the synthesis of quaternary ammonium salts .

literature

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