author
Claude-Louis Berthollet
1748–1822
A key figure in the birth of modern chemistry, he helped reshape how scientists think and talk about chemical reactions. He is also remembered for showing the bleaching power of chlorine, work that led to the famous disinfectant known as eau de Javel.
1 Audiobook
Memoria sobre a cultura da Urumbeba e sobre criação da Cochonilha
by Nicolas-Joseph Thiéry de Menonville, Claude-Louis Berthollet, José Mariano da Conceição Velloso
About the author
Born in Talloires in Savoy in 1748, Claude-Louis Berthollet trained in medicine at Turin before building his career in Paris as a chemist. There he joined the circle of Antoine Lavoisier and became part of the movement that gave chemistry a clearer, more systematic language.
Berthollet made important contributions both in the laboratory and in theory. He studied substances such as ammonia and prussic acid, helped develop modern chemical nomenclature, and argued that chemical reactions could run in reverse and depend on the quantities of the reacting materials. Those ideas were especially influential in the development of chemical equilibrium and physical chemistry.
His work also had practical impact. Berthollet was the first to demonstrate chlorine's bleaching action, and his methods led to a sodium hypochlorite solution that became known as eau de Javel. Beyond his research, he was an influential scientific presence in France during and after the Revolution, and he died in Arcueil in 1822.