JOHANN WOLFGANG

DOBEREINER (178o--1849)  , German chemist, was born near Hof in Bavaria on the 15th of December 1780 . After studying pharmacy at Munchberg, he started a chemical manufactory in 1803, and in 1810 was appointed professor of chemistry, pharmacy and technology at Jena, where he died on the 24th of March 1849 . The Royal Society's Catalogue enumerates 171 papers by him on various chemical topics, but his name is best known for his experiments on platinum in a minute state of division and on the oxidation products of alcohol . In 1822 he showed that when a mass of platinum black, supplied with alcohol by a wick is enclosed in a jar to which the air has limited access, acetic acid and water are produced; this experiment formed the basis of the Schtitzenbach Quick Vinegar Process . A year later he noticed that spongy platinum in presence of oxygen canbring about the ignition of hydrogen, and utilized this fact to construct his " hydrogen lamp," the prototype of numerous devices for the self-ignition of coal-gas burners . He studied the formation of aldehyde from alcohol by various methods, also obtaining its crystalline compound with ammonia, and he was the discoverer of furfurol . An early observation of the diffusion of gases was recorded by him in '823 when he noticed the escape of hydrogen from a cracked jar, attributing it to the capillary action of fissures . His works included treatises on pneumatic chemistry (1821-1825) and the chemistry of fermentation (1822) . A correspondence which he carried on with Goethe and Charles August, grand-duke of Saxe-Weimar, was collected and published at Weimar by Schade in 1856 .