François-Marie Raoult facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
François-Marie Raoult
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François-Marie Raoult
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| Born | 10 May 1830 Fournes
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| Died | 1 April 1901 (aged 70) |
| Nationality | French |
| Known for | Raoult's law |
| Awards | Davy Medal (1892) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Chemistry |
François-Marie Raoult (born May 10, 1830 – died April 1, 1901) was a French scientist. He was a chemist who studied how different substances mix together. He especially looked at the physical properties of these mixtures, called solutions.
A Life of Discovery
François-Marie Raoult was born in a town called Fournes, in France. In 1853, he started working at a school in Reims. He held several jobs before becoming a chemistry professor in Sens in 1862. While there, he wrote a special paper about electric force. This paper helped him earn his doctor's degree in Paris the next year.
In 1867, Raoult began teaching chemistry at the University of Grenoble. Three years later, he became the head of the chemistry department. He kept this important job until he passed away in 1901. At first, Raoult's research was about physics, especially how electric cells work. Later, he became more interested in pure chemistry questions.
Understanding Solutions
Raoult is most famous for his work on solutions. He spent the last 20 years of his life studying them. In 1878, he published his first paper. It explained how adding a substance (a solute) to a liquid (a solvent) makes the liquid's freezing point lower. This is called freezing-point depression.
He did more experiments using different liquids like benzene, acetic acid, and water. He discovered a simple connection between the weight of a solute's molecule and the freezing point of the solution. He called this the "general law of freezing." It stated that if you dissolve one molecule of a substance in 100 molecules of any solvent, the freezing temperature of the solvent will drop by 0.63 degrees Celsius.
Raoult also studied how a solute affects a solvent's vapor pressure. He found that adding a solute lowers the vapor pressure. This decrease is related to the solute's molecular weight. These two discoveries were very important. They gave scientists a new way to figure out the molecular weight of dissolved substances. Other famous chemists, like Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff and Wilhelm Ostwald, used Raoult's ideas. His method for measuring freezing-point depression became even better after Ernst Otto Beckmann improved it. It is still a standard way to find the molecular weights of many substances.
Awards and Recognition
- Prix International de Chimie LaCaze (1889)
- Davy Medal (1892)
- Prix de l'Institut (1895)
- Commandeur de la Légion d'Honneur (1900)
See also
In Spanish: François-Marie Raoult para niños
