- Original name:
- Herbert Brovarnik
- Born:
- May 22, 1912, London, England
- Died:
- December 19, 2004, Lafayette, Indiana, U.S. (aged 92)
- Awards And Honors:
- Nobel Prize (1979)
- Subjects Of Study:
- borane
- carbonium ion
- chemical reaction
Herbert Charles Brown
-
Who was Herbert Charles Brown?
Herbert Charles Brown was a prominent American chemist, born in London, England, in 1912. He is renowned for his groundbreaking work on customized reducing agents and organoborane compounds in synthetic organic chemistry. This research significantly impacted both academic and industrial chemical practices, leading him to share the 1979 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Georg Wittig. Brown's early research at the University of Chicago focused on organoborane chemistry, a field he dedicated his career to. His discoveries, including sodium borohydride and lithium aluminum hydride, provided chemists with a versatile array of reducing agents tailored for specific synthetic needs.
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What field of science did Herbert Charles Brown work in?
Herbert Charles Brown was a prominent American chemist. His significant contributions were in the field of organic chemistry, particularly his work on customized reducing agents and organoborane compounds. This research had a substantial impact on both academic and industrial chemical practices, leading to his sharing of the 1979 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. His studies laid the groundwork for new synthetic methods and a deeper understanding of chemical reactions.
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What important discovery is Herbert Charles Brown known for?
Herbert Charles Brown, an American chemist, is renowned for his pioneering work on organoborane compounds and customized reducing agents in synthetic organic chemistry. This groundbreaking research significantly impacted both academic and industrial chemical practices. His contributions led to him sharing the 1979 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Georg Wittig. A key discovery was the hydroboration reaction in 1956, which involves the addition of boranes to unsaturated organic compounds, opening new pathways for stereospecific organic synthesis.
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What are boron-containing compounds, and why are they important in chemistry?
Herbert Charles Brown, a Nobel laureate in Chemistry, significantly impacted organic chemistry through his work with boron-containing compounds, particularly organoboranes. Boranes are compounds of boron and hydrogen, with the simplest being diborane (BâHâ). These compounds are crucial in synthetic organic chemistry due to their unique bonding structures, often involving three-center, two-electron bonds. Brown's development of the hydroboration reaction, which involves the addition of BHâ to unsaturated organic compounds, opened new pathways for stereospecific synthesis. Boron itself is a semimetal essential for plant growth and has wide industrial applications. Boron compounds, such as borax and boric acid, have historical and ongoing uses in various industries.
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How did Herbert Charles Brown's discovery improve the creation of new medicines and materials?
Herbert Charles Brown's pioneering work on organoborane compounds revolutionized synthetic organic chemistry. His development of customized reducing agents and the hydroboration reaction provided chemists with precise tools for constructing complex molecules. This advancement significantly improved the efficiency and scope of chemical synthesis, paving the way for the creation of new medicines and materials with tailored properties. His research enabled more controlled and predictable chemical transformations, which are fundamental to drug discovery and the development of novel materials.
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What prestigious award did Herbert Charles Brown receive for his work, and why was it significant?
Herbert Charles Brown was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1979, which he shared with Georg Wittig. This prestigious award recognized his groundbreaking work in synthetic organic chemistry, specifically his development of customized reducing agents and organoborane compounds. His research provided chemists with a versatile array of tools tailored for specific synthetic needs, significantly impacting both academic and industrial chemical practices. His work on the hydroboration reaction, in particular, opened new avenues for stereospecific organic synthesis.
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Herbert Charles Brown (born May 22, 1912, London, Englandâdied December 19, 2004, Lafayette, Indiana, U.S.) was one of the leading American chemists of the 20th century. His seminal work on customized reducing agents and organoborane compounds in synthetic organic chemistry had a major impact on both academic and industrial chemical practice and led to his sharing the 1979 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with the German chemist Georg Wittig.
Early life and education
Brown was born in a Jewish settlement camp in London, a temporary way station on his parentsâ migration from Ukraine to the United States, where they settled with family members living in Chicago. Brown earned a bachelorâs degree (1936) and a doctorate (1938) from the University of Chicago. His dissertation, under the direction of Hermann Schlesinger, involved the reaction of diborane with aldehydes and ketones. It was the beginning of a lifetimeâs devotion to organoborane chemistry. (Boron-hydrogen compounds and their derivatives are known as borane.) Postdoctoral study of the chlorosulfonation of alkanes (hydrocarbon compounds with only single molecular bonds) may likewise be seen as the genesis of his almost equally long devotion to physical organic chemistry.
Scientific career
In 1939 Brown became Schlesingerâs personal research assistant. World War II soon came to dominate the research carried out by Schlesingerâs group at Chicago. Contributions were made to the Army Signal Corpsâ desire for a convenient method for the field generation of hydrogen. Of more lasting importance, though, were the discovery and large-scale preparation of sodium borohydride and lithium aluminum hydride.
Sodium borohydride is a relatively mild reducing agent, while lithium aluminum hydride is among the most powerful. A major portion of Brownâs research at Chicago (1939â43), Wayne State University (1943â47) in Detroit, and Purdue University (1947â78) in West Lafayette, Ind., was devoted to the development of new reducing agents. As a consequence of his work, organic chemists obtained an unparalled array of reducing agents carefully tailored to specific synthetic requirements. It was this work that was alluded to in the first part of the citation for his Nobel Prize.
Incidental to this work, Brown and B.C. Subba Rao studied the reduction of ethyl oleate by sodium borohydride in the presence of aluminum chloride. While the expected reduction of the ester group did indeed take place, there was an additional uptake of active hydrogen. Rather than dismissing the anomalous result, Brown boldly speculated that the double bond in oleic acid had been âhydroboratedâ by the excess reagent. Further research showed that this hydroboration reaction was a general property of double bonds.
At the time of this discovery (1956), hydroboranes were virtually unknown and thought not likely to be of synthetic use. Further work by Brown and his coworkers showed that organoboranes, produced by the hydroboration reaction, were in fact capable of an extraordinary range of synthetically important reactions. This work was addressed in the second part of his Nobel Prize citation.
Brown officially retired shortly before receiving the Nobel Prize. He wrote Hydroboration (1962) and Organic Syntheses via Boranes (1975), among other works.
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