Ribeira Grande, Cape Verde
Ribeira Grande (also: ''Povoação'') is the largest town of the Ribeira Grande Municipality on the island of Santo Antão, Cape Verde. It has become a city in 2010.
University of Lisbon
The University of Lisbon (ULisboa; pt, Universidade de Lisboa, ) is a public research university in Lisbon, and the largest university in Portugal. It was founded in 2013, from the merger of two previous public universities located in Lisbon, t ...
, there, he also received his alma mater. For some years he lived in Macau and Hong Kong, where he founded his own pharmacy.http://www.asemana.publ.cv/spip.php?article73551 He studied the compounds of
amyl
Amyl may refer to:
* Amylum or starch, a carbohydrate
** Amylopectin, a polymer of glucose found in plants; one of two components of starch
** Amylose, a helical polymer made of α-D-glucose units; one of two components of starch
* Pentyl, a fiv ...
bases and
propylamine
Propylamine, also known as ''n''-propylamine, is an amine with the chemical formula CH3(CH2)2NH2. It is a colorless volatile liquid.Karsten Eller, Erhard Henkes, Roland Rossbacher, Hartmut Höke "Amines, Aliphatic" in ''Ullmann's Encyclopedia of I ...
at the laboratory of
Charles Adolphe Wurtz
Charles Adolphe Wurtz (; 26 November 181710 May 1884) was an Alsatian French chemist. He is best remembered for his decades-long advocacy for the atomic theory and for ideas about the structures of chemical compounds, against the skeptical opinio ...
, and achieved total synthesis of
glycerine
Glycerol (), also called glycerine in British English and glycerin in American English, is a simple triol compound. It is a colorless, odorless, viscous liquid that is sweet-tasting and non-toxic. The glycerol backbone is found in lipids known ...
at a laboratory of
Charles Friedel
Charles Friedel (; 12 March 1832 – 20 April 1899) was a French chemist and mineralogist.
Life
A native of Strasbourg, France, he was a student of Louis Pasteur at the Sorbonne. In 1876, he became a professor of chemistry and mineralogy at ...
.
In 1863 he went to Paris, and taught analytical chemistry at the École des Mines de Paris (now the
. Among his students was chemist Charles Lepierre, who settled in 1888 at his suggestion in Portugal. A street is named in his honor in
São Domingos de Benfica
São Domingos de Benfica () is a ''freguesia'' (civil parish) and district of Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. Located in northern Lisbon, São Domingos de Benfica is east of Benfica, south of Carnide, west of Alvalade, and north of Campolide. ...
Since 2007, he is featured on a Cape Verdean $500 escudos banknote.
A plaque is commemorated at his former house in Ribeira Grande. The plaque reads in Portuguese, it is translated into English as "Here Roberto Duarte Silva was born, notable Cape Verdean chemist, 1837-1889".