We live in a world filled with colours. And as if the colours available naturally aren’t enough, we also synthesise them artificially in order to add them wherever we find appropriate. We’ll have to thank British chemist William Henry Perkin for this, for it was he who made the serendipitous discovery of the first synthetic dye.
Born in London on March 12, 1838, Perkin entered the Royal College of Chemistry, London in 1853 as a 15-year-old. Perkin studied here under German chemist August Wilhelm von Hofmann, working also as his laboratory assistant.
Looks for quinine
Hofmann, during this time, was looking to synthesise quinine, which is used in the treatment of malaria. Quinine was solely obtained from the bark of the cinchona tree that was grown in plantations in southeast Asia, making it desirable to produce the substance artificially.
Perkin was toiling over the Easter holidays in 1856, trying to meet his instructor’s objective of making quinine. He instead ended up with a series of failed experiments and on occasions, beakers full of muck.
But finds mauveine
On one such occasion, when Perkin was trying to rinse out the sludge from his beaker, he noticed that it reacted when diluted with alcohol, leaving behind a bright and vivid purple solution. By conducting further trials of his failed experiment, Perkin was able to perfect his method. Without ever intending to and totally by accident, Perkin became the discoverer of the first synthetic dye.
Perkin called the dye “mauveine” and applied for a British patent titled “Dyeing Fabrics” on August 26, 1856. Within a year, he started manufacturing the dye from a factory he set up with the help of his father and brother at Greenford Green, not far from London.
Couldn’t have timed it better
Perkin couldn’t have found a more perfect time to stumble upon his discovery. Coal tar was the major source of his raw material and it was being produced as a waste material in large quantities during the Industrial Revolution.
Furthermore, Perkin’s mauveine was a more permanent stain, scoring well over the dye produced from natural materials, which were not only more expensive and time-consuming to make, but also faded rather quickly. Add to it the fact that purple was very much in vogue, and Perkin had literally hit the lottery!
In the years that followed, Perkin had further success with dyes, came up with a reaction for preparing unsaturated acids that now bear his name and even managed to synthesise coumarin, the first artificial perfume.
He amassed enough wealth along the way to walk out from manufacturing in 1874, immersing himself completely in research, pertaining predominantly to chemical processes and the optical rotation of many substances. In 1906, 50 years after his serendipitous discovery and a year before his death, he was knighted, becoming Sir William Henry Perkin from then on.
