13 Facts About Nikolai Menshutkin

Nikolai Menshutkin was born in a merchant family as the sixth son of Alexander Nikolaevitch Nikolai Menshutkin.

Nikolai Menshutkin graduated with honors from gymnasium in December 1857, but only by autumn 1858 managed to enroll to the Saint Petersburg State University, as he was still under the prescribed age of 16.

Nikolai Menshutkin studied at the faculty of physics and mathematics and was nearly expelled in the autumn of 1861 due to some political disturbances.

Nikolai Menshutkin defended it in March 1866 against Aleksandr Butlerov and Dmitri Mendeleev and in autumn began teaching a course on organic nitrogen compounds.

In 1871, Nikolai Menshutkin became secretary of the faculty of physics and mathematics and in 1879 was appointed as dean, an office which he held until 1887.

Nikolai Menshutkin managed to build the laboratories by October 1894 and worked there for eight years.

Nikolai Menshutkin had suffered for many years from disorder of the kidneys.

Nikolai Menshutkin survived an attack at the end of 1906, but then suddenly died in February 1907.

In 1890 Nikolai Menshutkin discovered that a tertiary amine can be converted into a quaternary ammonium salt by reaction with an alkyl halide.

Nikolai Menshutkin further studied the influence of isomerism among alcohols and acids on esterification and showed that, both in respect of rate and limit, the primary, secondary, and tertiary alcohols differ from one another, and that unsaturated differ from saturated alcohols.

Nikolai Menshutkin further studied the effect of different solvents on the reaction rates.

Between 1889 and 1895 Nikolai Menshutkin focused on amines, on the kinetics of their interaction with alkyl halogen compounds and its dependence on the isomerism.

Nikolai Menshutkin is regarded as a pioneer in chemical kinetics, not for the priority, but for systematic development of this field.