James Mason CraftsDied 20 Jun 1917 at age 78 (born 8 Mar 1839).American chemist who with French chemist Charles Friedel, discovered an important organic carbon-chain addition to carbon-ring chemical synthesis techique, the Friedel-Crafts reaction (1877). This was a method of synthesizing hydrocarbons or ketones from aromatic hydrocarbons using aluminum chloride as a catalyst. Friedel and Crafts also did much work on the synthesis of organosilicon compounds. |