Henri BraconnotDied 13 Jan 1855 at age 73 (born 29 May 1781).French naturalist and chemist known for isolating glucose, a simple sugar, directly from such plant material as sawdust, linen or bark by boiling them with acid (1819). Previously, glucose had only been derived from starch. In 1811, he was the first to find fungtine - in mushrooms. (It was named chitin in the 1830's when it was also isolated in insects.) Chitin is one of the most abundant polysaccharides found in nature. In 1832, Braconnot prepared “xyloidine”by treating starch, sawdust, and cotton with nitric acid. He found that this material was soluble in wood vinegar and attempted to make coatings, films, and shaped articles from it. This was an early discovery preceding the work of other scientists with nitrocellulose that led to the advent of plastics and rayon. |
