Henri Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville

Henri Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville (11 March 1818 – 1 July 1881) was a <a href="/facts/French_people/984axQ8y">French</a> <a href="/facts/Chemist/N09K7Bdm">chemist</a>.
He was born in the island of <a href="/facts/Saint_Thomas%2c_U.S._Virgin_Islands/0FbUujBo">St Thomas</a> in the <a href="/facts/Danish_West_Indies/KYbPdkYo">Danish West Indies</a>, where his father was French consul. Together with his elder brother <a href="/facts/Charles_Joseph_Sainte-Claire_Deville/GjQkqyxM">Charles</a>, he was educated in <a href="/facts/Paris/DrNHpwnA">Paris</a> at the <a href="/facts/Coll%25C3%25A8ge-lyc%25C3%25A9e_Jacques-Decour/10Kpek50">collège Rollin</a>. In 1844, having graduated as a doctor of <a href="/facts/Medicine/2fnp90Je">medicine</a> and doctor of science, he was appointed to organize the new faculty of science at <a href="/facts/Besan%25C3%25A7on/a2xUhy08">Besançon</a>, where he acted as dean and professor of chemistry from 1845 to 1851. Returning to Paris in the latter year he succeeded <a href="/facts/Antoine_J%25C3%25A9r%25C3%25B4me_Balard/F35HurK6">Antoine Jérôme Balard</a> at the <a href="/facts/%25C3%2589cole_Normale/KQtorjQB">École Normale</a>, and in 1859 became professor at the <a href="/facts/University_of_Paris/yXAx8nlG">Sorbonne</a> in place of <a href="/facts/Jean-Baptiste_Dumas/KYYzQJnb">J. B. A. Dumas</a>, for whom he had begun to lecture in 1853. He died at <a href="/facts/Boulogne-sur-Seine/E8M27uqB">Boulogne-sur-Seine</a>.
In 1841, he began his experiments with investigations of oil of <a href="/facts/Turpentine/ME2Lgu0K">turpentine</a> and <a href="/facts/Tolu_balsam/q4sUwJBw">tolu balsam</a>, in the course of which he discovered <a href="/facts/Toluene/Pzdt8dwD">toluene</a>. But his most important work was perhaps in inorganic and thermal chemistry. In 1849 he discovered anhydrous nitric acid (<a href="/facts/Dinitrogen_pentoxide/2uAxoRpM">nitrogen pentoxide</a>), a substance interesting as the first obtained of the so-called "<a href="/facts/Anhydride/9YnWCsJo">anhydrides</a>" of the monobasic acids. In 1854, he succeeded in obtaining metallic <a href="/facts/Aluminium/7wmR8jYE">aluminium</a>, and ultimately he devised a method by which the metal could be prepared on a large scale by the aid of <a href="/facts/Sodium/eYuSPu2V">sodium</a>, the manufacture of which he also developed. Together with <a href="/facts/Friedrich_W%25C3%25B6hler/D7uh7ySD">Friedrich Wöhler</a>, he discovered <a href="/facts/Silicon_nitride/58X9QPQJ">silicon nitride</a> in 1857. With <a href="/facts/Jules_Henri_Debray/nhqA9S8R">Jules Henri Debray</a> (1827–1888) he worked at the <a href="/facts/Platinum/qJC6lQf7">platinum</a> metals, his object being on the one hand to prepare them pure, and on the other to find a suitable metal for the standard metre for the International Metric Commission then sitting at Paris. With <a href="/facts/Louis_Joseph_Troost/kSFHKqVr">Louis Joseph Troost</a> (born 1825) he devised a method for determining vapour densities at temperatures up to 1400˚C, and, partly with F. Wöhler, he investigated the <a href="/facts/Allotropy/2WUdHWxg">allotropic</a> forms of <a href="/facts/Silicon/cgWx0hdr">silicon</a> and <a href="/facts/Boron/Pmwgd7Mf">boron</a>.
The artificial preparation of minerals, especially of <a href="/facts/Apatite/f5tYvl1n">apatite</a> and isorhor-phous minerals and of crystalline oxides, was another subject in which he made many experiments. But his best known contribution to general chemistry is his work on the phenomena of reversible reactions, which he comprehended under a general theory of "dissociation". He first took up the subject about 1857, and it was in the course of his investigations on it that he devised the apparatus known as the "Deville hot and cold tube."
Deville was elected to the <a href="/facts/American_Philosophical_Society/auqTbV2C">American Philosophical Society</a> in 1860. In 1885, the rue Sainte-Claire-Deville in the 12th <a href="/facts/Municipal_arrondissements_of_France/qtyDJawM">arrondissement</a> de Paris was named in his honour.

Henri Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville open-in-new

Henri Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville