Vyacheslav Evgenievich Tishchenko (Вячеслав Евгеньевич Тищенко; 19 August 1861 – 25 February 1941) was a Russian chemist, best-known for the development of the

Tishchenko reaction The Tishchenko reaction is an organic chemical reaction that involves disproportionation of an aldehyde in the presence of an alkoxide. The reaction is named after Russian organic chemist Vyacheslav Tishchenko, who discovered that aluminium alk ...

Life and work

Tishchenko was born in 1861 in

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

, where he attended school before undertaking studies at

Saint Petersburg State University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBGU; ) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the Great, the university from the be ...

(which was named Saint Petersburg Imperial University at the time). He worked in the laboratory of

Alexander Butlerov Alexander Mikhaylovich Butlerov (; 15 September 1828 – 17 August 1886) was a Russian chemist, one of the principal creators of the theory of chemical structure (1857–1861), the first to incorporate double bonds into structural form ...

, studying the interaction of

paraformaldehyde Paraformaldehyde (PFA) is the smallest polyoxymethylene, the polymerization product of formaldehyde with a typical degree of polymerization of 8–100 units. Paraformaldehyde commonly has a slight odor of formaldehyde due to decomposition. Par ...

with hydrohalic acids. Tishchenko graduated in 1884 and worked with

Dmitri Mendeleev Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev ( ; ) was a Russian chemist known for formulating the periodic law and creating a version of the periodic table of elements. He used the periodic law not only to correct the then-accepted properties of some known ele ...

as a laboratory assistant and lecture assistant. Tishchenko became a lecturer at St. Petersburg State University in 1891, where he taught analytical chemistry. He was sent to the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 and the Paris Exposition in 1900 in order to report back to his home university on the chemical technology exhibited at these expositions. Following the 1917

October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

, Tishchenko headed a laboratory at the Russian State Institute of Applied Chemistry, which was affiliated with the military industry and focused on chemical synthesis. In 1928, Tishchenko was named a Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and was named an Academician in 1935.

Chemistry

The

produces

ester In chemistry, an ester is a compound derived from an acid (either organic or inorganic) in which the hydrogen atom (H) of at least one acidic hydroxyl group () of that acid is replaced by an organyl group (R). These compounds contain a distin ...

s from an

aldehyde In organic chemistry, an aldehyde () (lat. ''al''cohol ''dehyd''rogenatum, dehydrogenated alcohol) is an organic compound containing a functional group with the structure . The functional group itself (without the "R" side chain) can be referred ...

and a

ketone In organic chemistry, a ketone is an organic compound with the structure , where R and R' can be a variety of carbon-containing substituents. Ketones contain a carbonyl group (a carbon-oxygen double bond C=O). The simplest ketone is acetone ( ...

, or two equivalents of an aldehyde, in the presence of a sodium alkoxide as base. Also named after him is the 'Tishchenko flask', a type of glassware used in absorption of gases. In 1931, Tishchenko undertook work on the synthesis of

camphene Camphene is a bicyclic organic compound. It is one of the most pervasive monoterpenes. As with other terpenes, it is insoluble in water, flammable, colorless, and has a pungent smell. It is a minor constituent of many essential oils such as tu ...

from

pinene Pinene is a collection of unsaturated bicyclic monoterpenes. Two geometric isomers of pinene are found in nature, α-pinene and β-pinene. Both are chiral. As the name suggests, pinenes are found in pines. Specifically, pinene is the major comp ...

via a

Wagner–Meerwein rearrangement A Wagner–Meerwein rearrangement is a class of carbocation 1,2-rearrangement rearrangement reaction, reactions in which a hydrogen, alkyl or aryl group migrates from one carbon to a neighboring carbon. They can be described as cationic ,2sig ...

. Similar methods were later used by Shering Company in the industrial synthesis.

Biographical work

Tishchenko was among the first biographers of Mendeleev, collaborating with Mikhail Nikolaevich Mladentsev to publish a biography in 1938, ''Дмитрий Иванович Менделеев, его жизнь и деятельность'' (''Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev, his life and work''). Though not published until later, Tishchenko and Mladentsev also wrote a second biography, ''Дмитрий Иванович Менделеев, его жизнь и деятельность: Университетский период 1861-1890'' (''Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev, his life and work: University period 1861-1890''). These biographies reprint several personal correspondences of Mendeleev's, and contain accounts of his professional and personal life, accentuated by the fact that Tishchenko knew and worked with Mendeleev.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tishchenko, Vyacheslav 1861 births 1941 deaths Scientists from Saint Petersburg Chemists from the Russian Empire Soviet chemists Academic staff of Saint Petersburg State University Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Recipients of the Stalin Prize