Peroxide - History

History

One of the first synthetic peroxides, barium peroxide, was synthesized by Alexander von Humboldt in 1799 as a by-product of his attempts to decompose air. Nineteen years later Louis Jacques Thénard recognized that this compound could be used for the preparation of a previously unknown compound, which he described as oxidized water – now known as hydrogen peroxide. Sodium peroxide was synthesized in 1811 by Thénard and Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac. The bleaching effect of peroxides and their salts on natural dyes became known around that time, but early attempts of industrial production of peroxides failed, and the first plant producing hydrogen peroxide was built only in 1873 in Berlin. The discovery of the synthesis of hydrogen peroxide by electrolysis with sulfuric acid had brought the more efficient electrochemical method. It was first implemented into industry in 1908 in Weißenstein, Carinthia, Germany. The anthraquinone process, which is still used, was developed during the 1930s by the German chemical manufacturer IG Farben in Ludwigshafen. The increased demand and improvements in the synthesis methods resulted in the rise of the annual production of hydrogen peroxide from 35,000 tonnes in 1950, to over 100,000 tonnes in 1960, to 300,000 tonnes by 1970, and by 1998, it reached 2.7 million tonnes.