The Life of Henri-louis Le Chatelier

Henri-Louis Le Chatelier is a world renowned French scientist and chemist. He is most linked with Le Chatelier’s principle, the principle enables predictions on the effects a dissimilarity of pressure or temperature has. Chatelier is well-thought-out to be one of the utmost chemists because his code industrialized a highly competent chemical procedure. He was born in Paris on September the 8th, 1850 to his Catholic family, which was littered with the types of both geniuses and researchers alike. His father was an engineer and accordingly sparked a methodical interest in him at a young age by having him read Louis Poinsot’s works. With Chatelier saying:

“Mon père aimait passionnément la géométrie, mais avait peu de considération pour l’analyse” (my father loved geometry but had a distrust of mathematical methods). (Wisniak 106)

Later in Chatelier’s life, he acquired scholar degrees while he attended the College Rollin. Specifically, he received a Bachelor of Letters and a Bachelor of Sciences. Chatelier then, in 1869, began studies at the Ecole Polytechnique. Unfortunately, he had to enact a hiatus on his education due to his prearranged service as a sub-lieutenant in the Franco-Prussian War. However, when the war was completed, he returned to the Ecole Polytechnique to acquire a degree in science and engineering, but not as soon as he could. Chatelier first went to Belgium for a study trip, which gave him the means for his first publication. He then joined a government engineering service knows as the Corps des Mines. Succeeding his father’s and additional family member’s comforts, Chatelier renewed an investment in examination of cements and ceramics as he became a professor of general chemistry at the Ecole des Mines. Then becoming an instructor at the College de France, he gained the chair of Mineral Chemistry in 1898. Nearly ten years later, he ultimately taught at the Sorbonne.

Chatelier was not only a chemist but also an inventor. He created an instrument capable of producing drastically more accurate results when measuring higher temperatures. The instrument was appropriately deemed to be called a thermocouple. It measures temperatures by evaluating differences in voltage between the two wires it is composed of. This instrument has been used countless times from when Chatelier had first constructed it all the way until present day society. It has seen some altercations and variations over time but the core basis for the instrument is due to Chatelier’s frustration of not having a tool proficient enough to complete what he needed.

During the 1880s, while Chatelier was a professor of Ecoles des Mines, there was a manifestation of mining disasters throughout France. Therefore, he began partaking in research on gas explosions and became energetic in the category of mining disasters. Precisely, he focused on how to prevent them from occurring as often. Thus, he began to study ignition temperatures along with flame speed to determine the cause of the violent reactions with various natural gas combinations while mining. Chatelier’s experimentations with acetylene ignition eventually led to the advancement of the oxyacetylene welders by further chemists. Along with further developments of general mining technologies that were in use at the time. Overall, he changed the mining field for the better even if disasters are what led him to be inspired to make a difference.

Some of his lessor acknowledged works are in the fields of steel production. He essentially helped to solve an issue at the time when engineers were unintentionally producing carbon monoxide in the manufacturing process. They had made an incorrect prediction that the iron oxides found within the compound would have produced iron dioxide. However, Chatelier knew that in fact the iron oxides were acting as catalysts to the response. Thus, all he had to do was simply inform the engineers that they were wrong and explain why. With that minuscule task, Henri broadened the possibilities for blast furnaces used in the steel process forever.

During his time with the experimentations and works with fundamentals such as cements and also ceramics, Henri became focused with the more thermodynamically driven areas. Through his newly found interest in thermodynamics, he ultimately devised his own Le Chatelier’s principle. It deals with the subject of a balance chemically. Fundamentally, the principle proposes the outcome if one condition of an equilibrium is altered the equipoise will begin shifting itself towards the original state it was previously in. Consequently, this principle has caused a more efficient chemical process by fluctuating an arrangement to have an anticipated outcome.

Henri-Louis Le Chatelier died on September the 17th, 1936 in Miribel-les-Échelles. He had contributed to the science and engineering fields for the majority of his adult life. Even when Chatelier was not conducting experiments or attempting new processes, he was instructing the youth to partake. In the end, he lived a full life filled with struggles and breakthroughs alike, and wanted to inspire others to try out their own ideas and beliefs like he did.