Born in Moscow on November 21, 1867, Vladimir Ipatieff studied math and science at military academies before starting his academic career as an instructor at the Mikhail Artillery Academy in St. Petersberg. Ipatieff finished a dissertation in 1895 under A.E. Favorskii at St. Petersberg University on reactions of bromine with tertiary alcohols. The following year, he was sent abroad to study terpene derivatives, in Munich, Germany with Adolf van Bayer. Before returning to St. Petersberg in 1897 as Professor in the Artillery Academy, Ipatieff spent time in other locations in Germany and France, forging connections with other chemists. Around about 1900, Ipatieff had begun to understand catalytic phenomena such as the dehydrogenation of alcohols to aldehydes and ketones, a class of reactions he called contact reactions at the time due to the interaction of the organic molecules with the steel walls of the reactor. One of his first discoveries was the catalytic dehydration of alcohols to alkenes using Al2O3 as a catalyst. By 1928, Ipatieff had risen considerably with promotions to lieutenant general and as director of the Central Chemistry Laboratories, however, political problems loomed and he and his wife Barbara left for Germany in 1930, never again returning to the USSR. While in Germany that year, he met Gustav Egloff of Universal Oil Products (UOP) who, along with Hiram Halle, convinced Ipatieff to come to Chicago part-time as the Director of Chemical Research. By 1931, with the help of Northwestern University, where he was named lecturer, and later Professor, the Ipatieff’s were living permanently in Chicago. Ipatieff enjoyed twenty years of success in Chicago, building catalysis research at both UOP and Northwestern, including discoveries such as solid phosphoric acid (SPA), a heterogeneous catalyst still used today for acid catalyzed reactions such as olefin oligomerization. The talk will focus on Ipatieff’s life and achievements, including the establishment of the Ipatieff Prize, given by the ACS every third year since 1947 to a researcher under the age of 40 for achievements in catalysis.

Dehydration, dienes, high octane, and high pressures: Contributions from Vladimir Nikolaevich Ipatieff, a father of catalysis

256th National Meeting (2018)

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