Erlenmeyer, Richard August Carl Emil

Erlenmeyer, Richard August Carl Emil (1825-1909) German chemist who, for his synthetic work, designed the conical Erlenmeyer flask known to all college chemistry students. He synthesized a number of important organic compounds, including guanidine, tyrosine, and isobutyric acid. 

Naphthalene (NAF-thuh-leen) is a white crystalline volatile solid with a characteristic odor often associated with mothballs. The compound sublimes (turns from a solid to a gas) slowly at room temperature, producing a vapor that is highly combustible. Naphthalene was first extracted from coal tar in 1819 by English chemist and physician John Kidd (1775- l85i). Coal tar is a brown to black thick liquid formed when soft coal is burned in an insufficient amount of air. It consists of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons, similar to that found in petroleum. Kidd s extraction of naphthalene was of considerable historic significance because it demonstrated that coal had other important applications than its use as a fuel. It could also be utilized as the source of chemical compounds with a host of important commercial and industrial uses. Naphthalene s chemical structure was determined by the German chemist Richard August Carl Emil Erlenmeyer (1825-1909). Erlenmeyer showed that the naphthalene molecule consists of two benzene molecules joined to each other. 

Erlenmeyer flask /er-len-my-er/ A conical glass laboratory flask with a narrow neck. It is named for the German chemist Richard August Carl Emil Erlenmeyer (1825-1909). 

Richard August Carl Emil Erlenmeyer (E. Erlenmeyer senr.) (Wahren or Wehren, nr. Wiesbaden, 28 June 1825-Aschaffenburg, 22 January 1909) studied in Giessen and was at first a pharmacist. From 1855 he (with Baeyer) became one of Kekul6 s first private students in Heidelberg, where he later taught in a private laboratory. He was then professor in the Munich Poly-technicum (1868-83). 

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