Title: Mauve - How One Man Invented a Colour that Changed the World
Author: Garfield, Simon
Price: £15.00
Publisher: Faber
Date Published: 2000
Specifications: HC., 222pp., 5" x 8", 250g.
ISBN: 0571201970
Condition: Very good in dust jacket.
Copies in stock: 3
Category: Chemical and Household Products More books in this category
Book type: Biography in Business
Hindsight ID: 2205 |
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Notes: The origins of chemical dyes, the work of William Perkin and the rise of the chemical industry.
An assistant to Hofmann and barely 18 years old, William H. Perkin in Easter 1856 made an accidental discovery that became the foundation of synthetic dyes – a central area of development in the chemical industry.
“I was endeavouring to convert an artificial base into the natural alkaloid quinine, but my experiment, instead of yielding the colourless quinine, gave a reddish powder. With a desire to understand this peculiar result, a different base of a more simple construction was selected, viz. aniniline, and in this case I obtained a perfectly black product; this was purified and dried, and when digested with spirits of wine gave the mave dye.”
Perkin’s father backed his son with almost all his capital to build a dyeworks at Greenford Green, and by December 1857, aniline purple was in use for silk dyeing on a commercial scale.
Keys: William Perkins, Scientist, Chemist, Mauve, Dyes, textiles, Hofmann
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