Contributions of Emanuele Paternò to chemistry

Abstract

Emanuele Paternò (Palermo. 1847-1935) obtained a chair in chemistry at the University of Turin in 1871, and a year later took the chair in Palermo, succeeding to his master S. Cannizzaro, who went to Rome. He was among the founders of “Gazetta Chimica Italiana” in 1970, served as Mayor of Palermo, and in 1890 was elected to the Senate. His pioneering studies (1869) on tetrahedral carbon and on the rotational isomery in dibromoethane, are well known worldwide. From 1885 on, Paternò made deep studies on cryoscopy, applying this technique to the determination of molar mass of numerous organic compounds. Later studies (1889–1910) on colloidal solutions brought to important results, revealing some basic properties of colloids. In 1909, Paternò started a series of brilliant studies on the photochemistry of organic compounds, and he discovered the photochemical cycloaddition of olefins to carbonyl compounds, today well known as the Paternò-Buchi reaction.