History of Chemistry

Frontal lectures (6 CFU, 48 hours)
1. The origins of chemistry: protochemistry, alchemy and iatrochemistry
The beginnings of chemistry; Greco-Alexandrian alchemy; Chinese alchemy; alchemy in the Islamic world; alchemy in Western Europe; Paracelsus and iatrochemistry; the birth of phlogiston.
2. The scientific method, pneumatic chemistry, the Age of Enlightenment, the birth of the new chemistry
The scientific method; early pneumatic chemists; the discovery of oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen; the Enlightenment and the end of phlogiston; Lavoisier's revolution, its condemnation and legacy; the birth of the new chemistry in Europe and Russia.
3. Atoms and the theories of matter.
Chemical affinity; stoichiometry and chemical equivalents; the law of definite and multiple proportions; Dalton and his atomic theory; the law of partial pressures; Dalton's supporters and opponents; Prout and primal matter; Berzelius and the theory of dualism; Faraday: a chemist lent to physics.
4. Atomic and molecular weights
Avogadro and the modern concept of a molecule; Cannizzaro and the Karlsruhe Congress.
5. The language of chemistry
The birth of chemical nomenclature.
6. The periodic system of the elements.
Early ideas of periodicity; Mendeleev and the periodic system; Lothar-Meyer: confirmation of periodicity; some 'minor' scholars who contributed to the birth and development of the periodic table; from atomic weight to atomic number; Curie and radioactivity; transmutation of the elements; transuranic elements and the development of the periodic table.
7. The separation of the inorganic and organic worlds.
Vitalism. The development of elementary analysis; Berzelius and the theory of radicals.
8. The birth and development of the concept of valence.
From valence theory to coordination chemistry.
9. Early inorganic industrial processes.
The sulfuric acid industry; the ammonia industry (Haber-Bosch process); the steel industry.
10. Fundamentals of Chemistry Didactics