Purple dye

As early as 2500 bce m India indigo was used to dye cloth a deep blue The early Phoenicians discovered that a purple dye of great value Tyrian purple could be extracted from a Mediterranean sea snail The beauty of the color and its scarcity made purple the color of royalty The availability of dyestuffs underwent an abrupt change m 1856 when William Henry Perkin an 18 year old student accidentally discovered a simple way to prepare a deep purple dye which he called mauveme from extracts of coal tar This led to a search for other synthetic dyes and forged a permanent link between industry and chemical research... 

The foundation of the synthetic dye industry is universally attributed to William Henry Perkin on account of his discovery in 1856 of a purple dye which he originally gave the name Aniline Purple, but which was later to become known as Mauveine. Perkin was a young enthusiastic British organic chemist who was carrying out research aimed not initially at synthetic dyes but rather at developing a synthetic route to quinine, the antimalarial drug. His objective in one particular set of experiments was... 

William Henry Perkin, an 18-year-old working in the back room and outdoor shed of his London home, had discovered in black coal tar a beautiful purple dye that would change the world. For the first time in history, color could be democratized. William Henry Perkin and his purple, later known as mauve, rescued the poor and middle classes from their age-old austerity of hues. Natural dyes were expensive and, before Perkin s synthetic mauve, millions of poor people lived their lives in untreated drab and dingy fibers. Even for the middle class, pieces of brilliantly dyed cloth were treasures to be reused from garment to garment and from year to year. It was the schoolboy William Henry Perkin and his successors who would give the world the ample abundance of tints that only the rich had previously enjoyed. 

Thus, given the demands of the textile industry, a well-trained young chemist like Perkin would have been alive to the dyeing possibilities in a beautiful purple solution. After experimenting with the solution on silk, Perkin realized he had discovered a process for transforming the chemicals in coal tar into a colorfast purple dye. 

Tyrian purple was derived from the "purple snail," the common name for what, in reality, are several species of mollusks of the genus Murex. Each one of the mollusk species yielded a slightly different variety of purple. In Tyre, where the most prized purple dye was produced, Murex brandaris snails were those most abundant and generally used, while in Sidon, not far to the north of Tyre, an amethyst purple variety of the dye was obtained from... 

McGovern, P. E. and R. H. Michel (1991), Royal purple dye Its identification by complementary physicochemical techniques, Inorg. Chem. 3(1), 69-76. 

Michel, R. H. and P. E. McGovern (1990), The chemical processing of royal purple dye Ancient descriptions as elucidated by modem science, ArchaeoMaterials 4, 97-104. 

C.J. Cooksey, R.S. Sinclair, Colour variations in Tyrian purple dyeing, Dyes in History and Archaeology, 20, 127 135 (2005). 

Procedure 11.6 Quantitation of albumin using bromcresol purple dye binding... 

Aniline is a purple dye that has the distinction of being the first synthetic dye ever made. It was developed in Germany at the end of the 19th century and its manufacture led to the development of the entire synthetic chemical and pharmaceutical industry that we know today. It is used as a dye and also as a stage in the synthesis of other dyes and chemicals. Unfortunately, both aniline and its derivatives, such as monomethyl-analine and dimethylaniline, are toxic. 

Perkin, W. H. J. Chem. Soc. 1868, 21, 53. William Henry Perkin (1838—1907), bom in London, England, studied under Hofmann at the Royal College of Chemistry. In an attempt to synthesize quinine in his home laboratory in 1856, Perkin synthesized mauve, the purple dye. He then started a factory to manufacture mauve and later other dyes including alizarin. Perkin was the first person to show that organic chemistry was not just mere intellectual curiosity but could be profitable, which catapulted the discipline into a higher level. In addition, Perkin was also an exceptionally talented pianist. 

The indigo plant was used as early as 3000 BCE to make purple dyes. For many years humans used insects, snails, and plants to make dyes of bright red, deep red, purple, brown, yellow, and black. The processes of extracting the dyes were expensive. Only the wealthy, and primarily royalty at this early time in history, could afford the deep purple dyes for their clothing and robes. Thus, the tradition of purple as the color of kings was originated. 

People have long used marine organisms as the source of a limited number of synthetic products used in everyday life. Perhaps the most famous of these organisms has been the mollusk Murex bran-dans, from which a beautiful purple dye can he extracted. The dye is obtained from a small organ of the mollusk (the hypobranchial gland), and its preparation is so expensive that it was traditionally used as a dye only for clothing worn by the nobility. For that reason, the dye was called royal purple or, more commonly, Tyrian purple, after the region from which it is obtained. 

Blue materials used as pigments or dyes, were the lapis lazuli (ultramarine), azurite (armenium). Both of these sometimes were called caeruleum. Indicum was indigo imported from India. Purpurissium was the name given to a pigment made from chalk colored with a purple dye, but whether from murex, indigo or woad does not seem definitely stated. 

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