How did chemists know chemical structures?

[Elite Engineer]

How were chemists such as Keklue able to comprehend and illustrate the structure of benzene without IR or NMR analysis? How did any chemist for that matter figure out chemical structures. Any books on this topic would be appreciated, it really interests me!

 

~ee

 

 

[studiot]

A really good account is given in the book

 

Chasing the Molecule by Julian Buckingham (Sutton Publishing 2004)

[rktpro]

Kekule has his famous story of how he dreamt of a curling snake biting its tail and something like that. But, like Kekule himself said, dreams are to be passed through filters of logic. Basically, Kekule had the ideas about benzene's chemical behaviour. I think a compounds chemical reaction with known reagents help guessing the structure. Parameters like double bond equivalence are very useful, of course you must know the no of each atom and the element.

[Elite Engineer]

A really good account is given in the book

 

Chasing the Molecule by Julian Buckingham (Sutton Publishing 2004)

Is this solely on Kekule, or the general history o chemistry? I'm having a hard time finding the book

[studiot]

It's a history of molecules, valency and molecular bonding from earliest times, by a London professor of and practising industrial chemist (mainly pharmacy if I remember correctly).

 

Yes it leads up to the Kekule inspiriation of ring molecules, but discusses all the necessary precursor work, including the blind alleys.

There are many more amusing tales, including failure to know or distinguish story of cis and trans isomers that led to mass poisoning.

It also includes plates of original documents.

 

I found the copy I read in my local library.

In the UK we have something called interlibrary loans.

The library should be able to obtain any book in print for a nominal fee.

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=chasing%20the%20molecule%20buckingham

Edited March 22, 2014 by studiot