Chemist Zelinsky is an outstanding Russian scientist specializing in organic chemistry. He was one of the founders and creators of the scientific school of organic catalysis and petrochemistry. He gained the greatest popularity in scientific circles as the creator of activated carbon, and in 1915 he invented the world's first effective gas mask.
Biography of a scientist
Chemist Zelinsky was born in 1861. He was born in Tiraspol on the territory of the Kherson province. His parents were nobles. Father came from a family of hereditary Volyn nobles. When the hero of our article was only two years old, he suddenly died of consumption. Two years later, for the same reason, his mother died.
The boy was left an orphan, his grandmother Maria Pavlovna Vasilieva took up his upbringing. He spent all summer in her village. When Nicholas was 10 years old, he began to study at the district school, preparing to enter the gymnasium. After graduating from them ahead of schedule, he entered the Richelieu gymnasium in Odessa, and immediately into the second grade. The boy established himself as a talented and inquisitive child in early childhood.
Studying at the University
After graduating from high school, Zelinsky becomes a student at Novorossiysk University. For higher education, he chooses the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. In 1884, he successfully completed it. The success of the young scientist was so impressed by his professors that he was left at the university, later sent to Germany. For two years he was raising his qualifications in laboratories in Göttingen and Leipzig.
In 1887, he was appointed Privatdocent at the Department of Chemistry of the native Novorossiysk University. After passing the master's exam, in 1889 he defended his thesis, which was devoted to isomerism. In 1891, Zelinsky became a doctor of science, defending a thesis on phenomena developing in terminal carbon compounds.
In 1893, the chemist Zelinsky gets the position of professor at his university, which holds until his death with the exception of a short break. From 1911 to 1917, the scientist leaves the university together with a group of famous professors in protest against the policies of the tsar's Minister of Education Lev Casso. He was a staunch conservative, advocated an exclusively protective policy in the field of education, because of which he constantly clashed with representatives of the liberal public. During the administration of the Ministry of Education, the concessions made after the 1905 revolution were significantly limited.
Work at Moscow University
The chemist Zelinsky returned to Moscow University in 1917 after the victory in the country of the October Revolution and the coming to power of the Bolsheviks. Over the years, he leads various departments. First, the department of organic chemistry, then oil chemistry, heads the laboratory of antibiotics and biogenic bases at the Faculty of Chemistry.
In 1935, a chemical scientist Zelinsky took a direct part in the organization of the Institute of Organic Chemistry, which began its work at the Soviet Academy of Sciences. In it, he runs a number of laboratories, sets up experiments, and conducts unique research.
Scientific work
The biography of the chemist Zelinsky indicates that this scientist has achieved a lot. First of all, he became famous thanks to the work on the chemistry of thiophene, as well as studying organic dibasic acids.
In 1891, the hero of our article went on an expedition to the Black Sea and Odessa estuaries. There he first managed to prove that hydrogen sulfide, which is contained in water, has a bacterial origin. During the time that chemist N. Zelinsky lived in Odessa, he wrote and published about 40 scientific papers.
Some of them were also devoted to the problem of electrical conductivity in amino acids and non-aqueous solutions. At the same time, his most important scientific achievements are associated with organic catalysis and the chemistry of hydrocarbons. The discoveries of the chemist Zelinsky in these areas are most significant.
Discoveries of Zelinsky
In the period from 1895 to 1907, Zelinsky synthesized cyclohexane and cyclopentone hydrocarbons, which served as standards for studying the chemical composition and became the basis for the artificial modeling of oil fractions and the oil itself.
In 1910, the discoveries of the chemist Zelinsky were associated with the phenomenon of catalysis, which consisted in the selective action of platinum and palladium when exposed to aromatic hydrocarbons. The scientist proved that under ideal conditions they depend solely on temperature.
In 1911, he made another important breakthrough in science. Zelinsky succeeded in rehydrogenating cyclohexane in the presence of palladium and platinum catalysts. He began to widely use this reaction to find out the content of cyclohexane hydrocarbons in kerosene and gasoline fractions of oil. He worked hard on these projects in 1920-1930. The scientist worked on an industrial method for producing aromatic hydrocarbons from oil. Zelinsky’s research data formed the basis of the processes of catalysis in oil fractions.
Oil cracking
In 1915, Zelinsky, despite the fact that he retired at Moscow University, continued active scientific work. In particular, he used oxide catalysts with great success during oil cracking. This led to a decrease in the temperature process and an increase in the yield of aromatic hydrocarbons.
The result of these studies was a method for producing gasoline using cracking oil and hydrochloric oil. The scientist came to such discoveries in 1918-1919. He launched this method on an industrial scale, playing a key role in providing the Soviet Union with gasoline. Improving the catalytic densification reaction, he proposed the use of activated carbon as a catalyst. Together with his students, the hero of our article studied the dehydrogenation of paraffins in the presence of other oxide catalysts.
At the same time, Zelinsky was a supporter of the organic origin of oil, conducted research, trying to connect its origin with oil shales, as well as various other organic synthetic substances. The formulated evidence of the intermediate formation of methylene radicals in catalytic reactions became important. Separately, it is necessary to mention his work on the creation of a coal gas mask and adsorption. He conducted them together with the scientist Kumant. The gas mask was launched into industrial production in 1915, so it was quickly adopted during the First World War, not only in the Russian army, but also in the allied armies.
Work as a teacher
Zelinsky was engaged not only in research, but also in teaching. He created a large school of Russian and then Soviet scientists, who made a fundamental contribution to the development of various fields of chemistry. Among his students and followers are many famous names. These are Kocheshkov, Vereshchagin, Izgaryshev, Lavrovsky, Uspensky, Rakovsky, Kazan.
It was Zelinsky who became the founder and one of the main organizers of the All-Union Chemical Society, which bore the name of Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev. In 1941, he was elected an honorary member of this society. Previously, he was an honorary member of the Moscow Society of Naturalists, and in 1935 he became president of this scientific organization.
Personal life
Zelinsky was married three times. The marriage with the first wife, whose name was Raisa, lasted 25 years. She died in 1906. For the second time, the researcher married the pianist Evgenia Kuzmina-Karavaeva, having lived with her for another quarter of a century. They had a daughter, Raisa, in 1910. She is known by the name Zelinskaya-Plata. Zelinsky’s third wife was Nina Evgenievna Zhukovskaya-God. She was an artist, they had two sons - Nikolai and Andrey. Their joint alliance lasted for about 20 years.
Curious facts
There are many interesting facts about the chemist Zelinsky. For example, he basically did not get a patent for the gas mask he invented, because he was convinced that it was unacceptable to profit from human misfortunes. Therefore, Russia donated rights to the Allies for its production. In his apartment, the only copy of the first gas mask made by Zelinsky himself is still kept.
It is curious that when the scientist was on an internship in Germany, he first managed to synthesize chloropicrin. He became the first scientist to experience its toxic effects. When Zelinsky officially discovered chloropicrin, they began to actively use it as a poisonous substance.
Conclusion
Chemist Zelinsky Nikolai Dmitrievich passed away in 1953, he was 92 years old. The scientist was buried in the capital, at the Novodevichy cemetery. It is really difficult to overestimate the contribution of this person to science.