Phillips, Peregrine

The lead-chamber process supplied the worlds need for sulfuric acid for a century and a half. In the late 19th century, the contact process replaced the lead-chamber process and is still used today to produce the world s supply of sulfuric acid. The contact process was first developed by Peregrine Phillips (1800- ), a British acid dealer, in 1831. The contact process used sulfur dioxide, S02, which was produced as a by-product when sulfur-bearing ores were smelted. The contact process was named because the conversion of sulfur dioxide to sulfur trioxide, S03, takes place on contact with a vanadium or platinum catalyst during the series of reactions ... 

Ever since England s Humphry Davy observed in the early 1800s that water was formed when hydrogen and oxygen react in the presence of a red-hot platinum wire, the phenomenon which Berzelius was to call catalysis has intrigued chemists. The uses of catalysts in industry were first consciously demonstrated by Peregrine Phillips in 1832 when he used platinum to oxidize sulfur dioxide (S02) to form sulfur trioxide (S03) and by Frederic Kuhlmann in 1837, when he produced nitric acid from ammonia. 

The second method for making sulfuric acid is known as the contact . It was invented about 1830 by an English vinegar merchant from Bristol, Peregrine Phillips. The chemical reactions involved in Phillips process are identical to those in the lead chamber process, but they are carried out over a catalyst of finely divided platinum metal. Phillips found that the yield obtained (the amount of raw material converted to useful product) was much higher than with the lead chamber process. 

As it happens, little attention was paid to Phillips discovery because there was not much demand for sulfuric acid at the time. It was not until the invention of synthetic dyes a few decades later that the compound became commercially important. But even then, the lead chamber process was the preferred method for making sulfuric acid. Over time, improvements were made in the contact process, and it gradually became more and more popular. Today, nearly all of the sulfuric acid produced is manufactured by some modification of Peregrine Phillips method. 

Peregrine Phillips, a British vinegar merchant from England, develops the contact process for making sulfuric acid. In the early 21st century it is still the most common way to make sulfuric acid. 

The manufacture of sulphuric acid by the synthesis of sulphur trioxide from sulphur dioxide and atmospheric oxygen in presence of heated platinum was patented in 1831 by Peregrine Phillips (son of Richard Phillips), a vinegar manufacturer in Bristol. The process was first worked to make fuming sulphuric acid by Messel (1875). 

In 1831, British vinegar merchant Peregrine Phillips patented the contact process, which was a far more economical process for producing sulfur trioxide and concentrated sulfuric acid. Today, nearly all of the world s sulfuric acid is produced using this method. 

Peregrine Phillips British patent 6096 (1881) described process of forming sulfur trioxide with a platinum catalyst. Used stoichiometric volumes of sulfur dioxide and oxygen. Inspired further research. 

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