Viktor Grignard Chemist Date of Birth: 06.05.1871 Country: France

1. Early Life and Education
2. Academic Career
3. Discovery of the Grignard Reaction
4. Later Years and Honors
5. Personal Life and Legacy

Early Life and Education

François Auguste Victor Grignard was born in Cherbourg, France on May 6, 1871, to Théophile Henri Grignard and Marie (née Héber) Grignard. His father was a sailmaker who later became a master of the local naval arsenal. Grignard attended the Lycée de Cherbourg and displayed exceptional intelligence early on.

After graduating, a scholarship allowed him to study mathematics at the École Normale Spéciale in Cluny. When this school closed two years later, he transferred to the University of Lyon, from which he graduated in 1892. Unable to pass the licensing exams for teaching in secondary schools, Grignard entered the military for mandatory service.

Academic Career

Upon his discharge, Grignard returned to Lyon and passed his exams the following year. During this time, a friend and fellow student from Cluny inspired his interest in chemistry. In 1894, he became an assistant in the chemistry department at Lyon University. Quickly demonstrating his abilities, Grignard earned a doctorate in physical sciences in 1898. That same year, he became a senior demonstrator under Philippe Antoine Barbier, the department's chair.

Barbier began investigating a method of using a metal to transfer an organic radical from one molecule to another. Compounds resulting from the attachment of a metal to one or more organic radicals were known as organometallic compounds. The only organometallic compounds known to be effective transferring agents at the time were organic zinc compounds. However, this process was tedious, and the results were not reproducible.

Discovery of the Grignard Reaction

Some years earlier, several German chemists had attempted to replace zinc with magnesium. However, they obtained unstable compounds in low yields, most of which were insoluble in inert solvents. Although magnesium appeared impractical as a transferring agent, Barbier approached the problem differently. Instead of attempting to prepare organomagnesium compounds, as the German experimenters had done, he simply reacted two organic substances with magnesium, and the reaction succeeded.

However, even these results were inconsistent, and Barbier abandoned the problem, offering it to Grignard as a thesis topic.

Grignard knew that in the 19th century, English chemists Edward Frankland and James Wanklyn had obtained organozinc compounds by heating organic compounds with the metal in the presence of anhydrous ether. Knowing that magnesium reacted more readily than zinc, Grignard hypothesized that magnesium should react more vigorously in such a reaction. This proved to be the case, and he used the method to obtain a variety of organometallic compounds, some of them for the first time. In 1900, Grignard published his research findings, which earned him a doctorate degree the following year.

The Grignard reaction became the pinnacle of his scientific career and has found extensive application in organic chemical experiments. Using the reaction named after him, other researchers were able to synthesize a wide range of organic compounds efficiently and simply.

Later Years and Honors

In 1905, Grignard became a lecturer in chemistry at the University of Besançon, near Dijon. However, he returned to Lyon the following year as Barbier's assistant. In 1908, he was promoted to associate professor. A year later, he moved to the University of Nancy, where he became Professor of Organic Chemistry in 1910.

In 1912, Grignard was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for the discovery of the so-called Grignard reagent, which in recent years has greatly advanced the progress of organic chemistry." He shared the prize with Paul Sabatier. In his presentation speech, H. G. Söderbaum, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, praised Grignard for "widening the boundaries of our knowledge, for his power of observation" and for "opening up prospects for new scientific advances."

When France entered World War I in 1914, Grignard was called up for service as a corporal in Normandy. He served briefly, carrying out guard duties, before being recalled to develop methods for producing the explosive toluene. In 1917, he visited the United States to coordinate Franco-American efforts on chemical weapons research. During his trip, he gave several lectures at the Mellon Institute (now Carnegie Mellon University) on the interrelations between science and industry.

Grignard was demobilized in 1919 and returned to his post at the University of Nancy. After a few months, he succeeded Barbier as Professor of Chemistry at the University of Lyon, where he remained for the rest of his career. In 1921, he also became director of Lyon's school of chemical engineering and in 1929 the scientific faculty's dean.

In Lyon, Grignard continued his research on organomagnesium compounds. However, he also investigated a wide range of other problems, including the condensation of aldehydes and ketones, the cracking of hydrocarbons, catalytic hydrogenation, and dehydrogenation at reduced pressure. In his later years, administrative duties, which he performed reluctantly, severely curtailed his research activities.

Personal Life and Legacy

In 1919, Grignard married Augustine Marie Boulang. They had a daughter and a son, who also became a chemist. A dedicated and versatile scientist, Grignard was also a highly respected teacher. After a long illness, he died in Lyon on December 13, 1935.

Among Grignard's numerous awards were the Berthelot Medal (1902), the Jecker Prize (1905) from the French Academy of Sciences, and the Lavoisier Medal of the French Chemical Society (1912). He was made a Commander of the Legion of Honour and awarded honorary doctorates from the universities of Brussels and Louvain. He was a member of numerous chemical societies, including those of England, the United States, Belgium, France, Romania, Poland, the Netherlands, and Sweden.