22 Facts About Krishnasami Venkataraman

Krishnaswami Venkataraman FNA, FASc, FNASc, FRSC, popularly known as KV, was an Indian organic chemist and the first Indian director at National Chemical Laboratory and University Department of Chemical Technology, Mumbai.

Krishnasami Venkataraman was an elected fellow of several science academies which included the Royal Society of Chemistry, Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, USSR Academy of Sciences, Prussian Academy of Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences, Indian Academy of Sciences, and the Indian National Science Academy.

Krishnasami Venkataraman's brothers were K Swaminathan, a professor of English who was the chief editor of the collected works of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Krishnaswami Srinivas Sanjivi, a noted medical doctor who founded Voluntary Health Services and is considered by many to be the father of the primary health care movement in India.

Krishnasami Venkataraman studied chemistry at Presidency College, Madras and obtained his MA from Madras University in 1923.

Krishnasami Venkataraman remained in England for his doctoral research, along with another noted chemist, T R Seshadri, at the laboratory of Robert Robinson which earned him a PhD and later a DSc from the University of Manchester.

Krishnasami Venkataraman stayed in Lahore until 1934 when he joined the then newly formed University Department of Chemical Technology of the University of Bombay as a reader and became a full Professor of Chemical Engineering in 1936.

Krishnasami Venkataraman served as the director of NCL until 1966, but continued his association with the laboratory eve after his retirement.

Krishnasami Venkataraman married Shakunthala at the age of nineteen when his bride was only fourteen.

Krishnasami Venkataraman died on 12 May 1981 at New Delhi, survived by his wife and daughter.

One of the major scientific achievements of Krishnasami Venkataraman was his experiments with 2-acetoxyacetophenones when he demonstrated, along with Wilson Baker, and English organic chemist, that the compound transformed into o-hydroxydibenzoylmethanes and finally to flavones which later came to be known as Baker-Krishnasami Venkataraman transformation.

Shortly after the Second World War, Krishnasami Venkataraman was invited for a visit IG Farben, a German dyestuff manufacturing company, and this gave him an opportunity to study the international dyestuff industry.

Krishnasami Venkataraman collected data which was later copied and published as an 8-volume book, The Chemistry of Synthetic Dyes, which is considered by many as a seminal work on dye chemistry.

Krishnasami Venkataraman focused his research on the chemistry of laccaic acid and later on other anthraquinonoid insect pigments.

Krishnasami Venkataraman was the first scientist in India to use X-ray crystallographers for finding solutions to problems of organic structure.

Krishnasami Venkataraman's contributions are reported in the development of National Chemical Laboratory into one of World's leading research centre in dyestuff chemistry.

Krishnasami Venkataraman sat in the editorial boards of many journals, which included Tetrahedron, Tetrahedron Letters and Indian Journal of Chemistry.

Krishnasami Venkataraman served as the president of the Indian Academy of Sciences for three terms and as the vice president from 1952 to 1955.

Krishnasami Venkataraman served as the vice president of the Indian National Science Academy.

Krishnasami Venkataraman was elected a fellow of the Chemical Society in 1932, which became the Royal Society of Chemistry in 1980.

Krishnasami Venkataraman was a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India.

Krishnasami Venkataraman was a fellow of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, USSR Academy of Sciences, and the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Krishnasami Venkataraman received the Professor T R Seshadri 60th birthday commemoration medal in 1973.