François Auguste Victor Grignard  Biography - Nobel Prize Winner (1912)

François Auguste Victor Grignard (May 6, 1871 in Cherbourg - December 13, 1935 in Lyon) was a Nobel Prize-winning French chemist.

Grignard was the son of a sail maker. After studying mathematics at Lyon he transferred to chemistry, becoming a professor at the University of Nancy in 1910. During World War I, he was transferred to the new field of chemical warfare, and worked on the manufacture of phosgene and the detection of mustard gas. His "opposite number" on the German side was another Nobel Prize winning Chemist, Fritz Haber.

He is most noted for devising a new method for creating carbon-carbon bonds (i.e. an addition reaction) in organic synthesis (Original publication: V. Grignard, Compt. Rend. Vol. 130, p. 1322 (1900)). The synthesis occurs in two steps:

1.Synthesis of the Grignard reagent: an organomagnesium compound (the Grignard reagent) is made reacting an organohalide (R-X, where R stands for some alkyl, acyl, or aryl radical and X is a halogen such as usually bromine or iodine) with magnesium metal dissolved in diethyl ether. The resulting compound, named a Grignard reagent, has the general chemical formula R-Mg-X.

2.Attack on the carbonyl: A ketone or an aldehyde (both contain a carbonyl group) is added to the solution containing the Grignard reagent. The carbon atom that is bonded to the Mg atom bonds to the carbonyl carbon atom by nucleophilic addition, with the formation of a new compound, which is an alcohol.
The Grignard reaction is an important means of making larger organic compounds from smaller starting materials. By careful selection of the starting materials, a wide variety of compounds can be made by this reaction. For this work, Grignard was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1912 jointly with fellow Frenchman Paul Sabatier (chemist).
 

LIST OF NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS IN CHEMISTRY PART II.

Grignard Victor

Grubbs Robert H

Haber Fritz

Hahn Otto

Harden Sir Arthur

Hassel Odd

Hauptman Herbert

Sir Walter Norman Haworth

Heeger Alan

Hershko Avram

Herschbach Dudley

Herzberg Gerhard

Heyrovsky Jaroslav

Hinshelwood Sir Cyril Norman

Hodgkin Dorothy Crowfoot

Hoff Jacobus Henricus

Hoffmann Roald

Huber Robert

Joliot-Curie Irene

Joliot Frederic

Karle Jerome

Karrer Paul

Kendrew Sir John Cowdery

Klug Sir Aaron

Knowles William

Kohn Walter

Kroto Sir Harold

Kuhn Richard

Langmuir Irving

Lee Yuan

Lehn Jean-Marie

Leloir Luis

Libby Willard Frank

Lipscomb William

MacDiarmid Alan G

MacKinnon Roderick

Marcus Rudolph A

Martin Archer John Porter

McMillan Edwin Mattison

Merrifield Robert Bruce

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