Paris Exposition

About this time, another chemist entered the field of the nitro-compoimds. This man was Jaworsky. He started out his work by preparing nitrotoluene, which he claimed to be a solid, and not a liquid as Deville, Wilson, and others had thought it to be. (13) Jaworsky represents about the bes t type of pure industrial chemist to be found in this period of time. His work on nitrotoluene had a great effect on the industries so much so, that at the Paris Exposition of 1867 there was exhibited a great quantity of beautifully crystallized nitrotoluene. Whether this consisted of the pure solid isomer of nitrotoluene or whether it was a mixture of one or more nitrotoluenes and dini-trotoluenes, is not known. Jaworsky was also the first to produce toluidin— the homologue of aniline— by the reduction of nitrotoluene with tin and hydrochloric acid. The immediate industrial result of Jaworsky s work was that the use of nitrotoluene as a dyestuff base was firmly established. 

Before chemists developed inexpensive ways to produce pure aluminum, it was considered a somewhat precious metal. In fact, in 1855, a bar of pure aluminum metal was displayed at the Paris Exposition. It was placed next to the French crown jewels ... 

The famous Eiffel Tower, built for the 1889 Paris Exposition, has inspired many crazy stunts, for example, in 1891 Silvain Dornon climbed the 363 steps on stilts. 

By 1852 the metal sold commercially for about 545 per pound. An elaborately enameled fan (now housed at the Smithsonian, Washington, DC) was made from aluminum for the Paris Exposition of 1867 while it was still classed as a precious metal, and it is said that Napoleon III had a tea service made from it. Process improvements, such as cryolite fluxing of the melt and lower sodium costs, brought the price of the metal down to U.S.S8 per pound by 1886, which removed its status appeal. 

The first synthetic fiber was rayon. In 1865, the French silk industry was threatened by an epidemic that killed many silkworms, highlighting the need for an artificial silk substitute. Louis Chardoimet accidentally discovered the starting material for a synthetic fiber when, while wiping up some spilled nitrocellulose from a table, he noticed long silklike strands adhering to both the cloth and the table. Chardoimet silk was introduced at the Paris Exposition in 1891. It was called rayon because it was so shiny that it appeared to give off rays of light. 

The use of vegetable oil for fuel is not a new idea. Rudolf Diesel reportedly used peanut oil to run one of his engines at the Paris Exposition in 1900. In addition, ethyl alcohol has been used widely as a fuel in South America and as a fuel additive in the United States. 

Randolph was awarded for this achievement a gold medal by the 1900 Paris Exposition. 

Count Louis Marie Hilaire Chardonnet, an assistant to Louis Pasteur, patented the process of producing filaments by forcing Collodion through small holes (spinnerets) in 1884. This "Chardonnet sifi" was a sensation at the Paris Exposition in 1891. Because of its inherent flammabiHty, this fiber was called "mother-in-law silk". Nevertheless, Chardonnet received the Perkin Medal in 1914 for this development. The carbon fibers used by Swan Edison in the nineteenth century were also used a century later as reinforcements for sophisticated plastic composites. 

The fuel of choice for Rudolph Diesel s internal combustion engine, introduced to the world at the Paris Exposition in 1900, was peanut oil. Coming full circle after over a century, so-called biodiesel fuels have become popular alternatives to the petroleum-derived hydrocarbon mixtures widely used in diesel engines. Rudolph Diesel eventually found that pure vegetable oil was too viscous to be practical... 

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