Homogeneous Catalysis: A Wedding of Theory and Experiment. The Eugene J. Houdry Award Address

Abstract

Great Britaiin dominated the chemical industry, particularly the dyestuff industyr, during the last half of the nineteenth century. William Henry Perkin, who had a post at the Royal College of Chemistry in London when he was 17, but who was working at the time in his home laboratory, oxidizedaniline sulfate with k₂Cr₂O₇ and obtained the dye aniline purple or mauve. Recognizing its potential, he resigned his academic position and together with his father began commercial manufacture of the dye when he was 19 years old. Perkin retired in 1874 at the age of 36to devote ful time to research. The other important dye stuff at the time was indigo. Under Imperial Britain, India in 1890 produced 5 million pounds of indigo from the woad plant; its selling price was $3/lb. Chemists at Badische Anilin and Soda Fabrik had been trying to synthesize indigo for many years and in 1897, after 18 years of research, the company achieved the first commercial synthesis. The major stumbling block in the process had been the oxidation of naphthalene to phthalic anhydride, and the successful solution of the problem resulted from an accident. A chemist by the name of Sapper accidentally broke a thermometer while he was trying to oxidize naphthalene with sulfuric acid. HgSO₄ turned out ot be a homogeneous catalyst for the reaction, although until this day, to the best of my knowledge, the exact mechanism of the catalysis is not understood. This achievement changed forever the relative position of the chemical industry in Great Britain vis-a-vis Germany, to Germany's advantage. The tremendous economic impact and potential of catalysis was appreciated by the German chemists. In 1901 Ostwald [1] wrote: