Scotland’s innovation and expertise in chemical sciences is rich, going way back in history; from world-changing discovery to flashes of genius to Nobel Prizes.

One of the earliest discoveries was in 1756 when Dr Joseph Black discovered carbon dioxide. This was the first step toward producing a pure substance and lit the way for many other scientists to do the same, creating one of the foundations of commercial chemistry.

The chemicals sector in Scotland has continued to boom and flourish since those early discoveries in both research and production. Today Scotland is still a vital location for world-renowned chemicals companies.

Scottish chemistry time line

2005	ScotCHEM established. A major new collaborative venture for the pooling and enhancement of resources for chemistry research in Scotland
1995	Structure determination of the light harvesting protein.
1969	Sir Derek Barton was presented with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (with O. Hassel) for contributions to the development of the concept of conformation and its application in chemistry.
1957	Lord Alexander Robertus Todd was presented with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on nucleotides and nucleotide co-enzymes.
1939	John Monteith Robertson well-known achievement was the development of the heavy-atom and isomorphous-replacement methods for solving the phase problem in chemical crystallography.
1913	Frederick Soddy's formulation of the concept of isotopes stated that certain elements exist in two or more forms which have different atomic weights but which are indistinguishable chemically.
1898	William Ramsay discovered argon, helium, neon, krypton, and xenon.
1897	Beginning of the Chemicals industry at Grangemouth
1868	Thomas Graham's work led to the technique of dialysis, used still to this day for purifying the blood of patients with kidney failure.
1858	Archibald Scott Couper was the first person to form a concrete idea of molecular structure.
1848	Lord Kelvin established the concept of absolute zero, the temperature at which all molecular motion ceases.
1753	Joseph Black discovered fixed air, known today as carbon dioxide (CO2).
1747	William Cullen was the first to lecture in Chemistry and establish chemical laboratories.

ScotCHEM established

ScotCHEM is a major new collaborative venture for the pooling and enhancement of resources for chemistry research in Scotland, bringing together the major players in research in chemical sciences. Visit www.scotchem.ac.uk for more infomation.

ScotCHEM encompasses two funded “pairing” initiatives:

• WestCHEM
  Comprising of Glasgow and Strathclyde universities. Research focuses on functional materials chemistry, medicinal chemistry, organic and inorganic synthesis, structural chemistry, analytical and biological chemistry, chemical proteomics and heterogeneous catalysis.
  Visit www.westchem.ac.uk for more information.
• EaStCHEM
  Bringing together Edinburgh and St Andrews universities. Research specialities include biophysical chemistry, chemical biology, organic synthesis, structural chemistry, materials chemistry, inorganic chemistry and physical chemistry/chemical physics.
  Visit www.eastchem.ac.uk for more information.

1995: Structure determination of the light harvesting protein

For more infomation about the Structure determination of the light harvesting protein visit the University of Glasgow's department of chemistry website.

1918- Present: Sir Derek Barton

Nobel Prize in Chemistry (with O. Hassel) "for their contributions to the development of the concept of conformation and its application in chemistry".

In 1950, in a brief paper in Experientia entitled "The Conformation of the Steroid Nucleus", Professor Barton showed that organic molecules in general, and steroid molecules in particular, could be assigned a preferred conformation based upon results accumulated by chemical physicists such as Odd Hassel.

Having chosen a preferred conformation, it was demonstrated that the chemical and physical properties of a molecule could be interpreted in terms of that preferred conformation.

In molecules containing fixed rings, such as the steroids, there resulted a simple relationship between configuration and conformation, such that configurations could be predicted once the possible conformations for the products of a reaction could be analysed. Thus the subject "conformational analysis" had begun

In 1955 he became Regius Professor of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow. In 1957 he was appointed Professor of Organic Chemistry at Imperial College..

For more information about Sir Derek Barton visit www.nobelprize.org

1907 - Present: Lord Alexander Robertus Todd - B.Sc.

Sir Alexander Robertus Todd was born in Glasgow on October 2, 1907. The main subjects of Todd's researches have been:

• The chemistry of natural products of biological importance;
• Nucleotide and nucleotide coenzyme studies (described in his Nobel Lecture);
• The chemistry of vitamins B1, E and B12;
• The constituents of Cannabis species;
• Insect colouring matters; and
• Factors influencing obligate parasitism and various mould products.

In 1957 Lord Todd was presented with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his work on nucleotides and nucleotide co-enzymes."

For more information about Frederick Soddy visit www.nobelprize.org

1900 - 1989: John Monteith Robertson

John Monteath Robertson ("JM") was a pioneer in the field of X-ray crystallography and the founder of organic crystallography.

Among many other achievements, he is noted for the development of heavy-atom and isomorphous-replacement methods for solving the phase problem in chemical crystallography, thereby laying the foundations for subsequent determination of the structures of proteins and other biological macromolecules by X-ray diffraction.

In 1939 he predicted that the structure of insulin would be solved in this way - a task finally accomplished by Dorothy Hodgkin and her Oxford Group in 1969..

For more information about John Monteith Robertson visit the University of Glasgow's department of chemistry website.

1877 - 1956: Frederick Soddy

From 1904 to 1914 Soddy was lecturer in physical chemistry and radioactivity in the University of Glasgow. Here he did much practical chemical work on radioactive materials.

During this period he evolved the so-called "Displacement Law", namely that emission of an alpha-particle from an element causes that element to move back two places in the Periodic Table.

His peak was in 1913 with his formulation of the concept of isotopes, which stated that certain elements exist in two or more forms which have different atomic weights but which are indistinguishable chemically.

For more information about Frederick Soddy visit www.nobelprize.org

1852-1916: William Ramsay

William Ramsay was born in Glasgow on October 2 1852. Ramsay's earliest works were in the field of organic chemistry. However, it was in the field of inorganic chemistry that his most celebrated discoveries were made. As early as 1885 to1890 he published several notable papers on the oxides of nitrogen and followed those up with by discovering a number of elements.

While seeking sources of argon in the mineral kingdom, Ramsay discovered helium in 1895. Guided by theoretical considerations founded on Mendeleev's periodic system, he then methodically sought the missing links in the new group of elements and found neon, krypton, and xenon (1898).

Yet another discovery of Ramsay (in conjunction with Soddy) was the detection of helium in the emanations of radium (1903). He also received the Nobel Prize in chemistry (1904) "in recognition of his services in the discovery of the inert gaseous elements in air, and his determination of their place in the periodic system".

For more information about William Ramsay visit www.nobelprize.org

1897: Beginning of the Chemicals industry at Grangemouth

In 1897 the Scottish Cooperative Wholesale Society established a large factory in Grangemouth making soap and glycerine. It was the town’s first chemical works and was followed in 1919 by James Morton's pioneering Scottish Dyes, which eventually became part of the ICI's dyestuffs division in 1928.

Four years before that, Scottish Oils had opened the first Grangemouth plant to refine crude oil from the Persian Gulf. From these small beginnings the massive Grangemouth petro-chemical complex has grown to dominate all other activities in the area. .

For more infomation about the Grangemouth chemical industry visit the Falkirk local history website.

1853: Henry How

Henry How (Assistant to Thomas Anderson) conceived the idea of functional group modification in natural products

making the quaternary ammonium salt of morphine and thereby "unwittingly set in motion a sequence of events which ultimately transformed the process of drug discovery."

Source: Walter Sneader , Drug Discovery: the evolution of modern medicines, Wiley, 1985

1805-1869: Thomas Graham

Thomas Graham was born in 1805. He graduated from Glasgow University which was followed by postgraduate study in Edinburgh, where he presented his first lectures in chemistry.

His work on the diffusion of gases was used in 1868 to discover the chemical formula for ozone 03. Graham's investigations of the behaviour of crystallised compounds passing through membranes, as a method of separating large molecules from similar compounds, led to the technique of dialysis.

Graham's method is still in use in hospitals today for purifying the blood of patients with kidney failure.

For more information about Thomas Graham visit the University of Strathclyde’s Semiconductor Spectroscopy and Devices website

1831-1892: Archibald Scott Couper

Couper had revolutionary ideas about the way atoms joined to form molecules. He was the first person to form a firm idea of molecular structure, proposing that atoms joined to each other like Tinkertoys in specific three-dimensional structures.

He postulated rings of atoms as the structures of some molecules, and straight chains for others. Also of importance was his idea that each carbon atom could be joined to exactly four other atoms in the structure of a molecule.

Couper was also the first person to draw molecular structures using elemental symbols for atoms and with lines drawn between the atoms to indicate the bonds between them.

For more information about Archibald Scott Couper visit the Chemical Heritage Foundation website.

1824 - 1907: Lord Kelvin

William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) was born in Belfast, but lived in Scotland for a large part of his life with strong connections with Glasgow.

He invented the absolute scale, also called the Kelvin scale, in 1848. It has, as its low point, a mark called absolute zero , the point at which all matter stops moving and below which the temperature cannot be lowered. Modern calculations place this temperature at -273.18° C.

For more information about Lord Kelvin, visit the University of Glasgow's department of Physics and Astronomy website.

For more information about Lord Kelvin visit the University of Glasgow's department of Physics and Astronomy website.

1728-1799: Joseph Black

Born in Bordeaux but of Scottish descent, Joseph Black studied medicine at the University of Glasgow and was a student of William Cullen. He moved to Edinburgh in 1752 to further his studies but returned to Glasgow to teach anatomy, botany and chemistry.

It is during the early Glasgow years (1750-52) that it seems Black began his work on the chemistry of "magnesia alba" (a basic magnesium carbonate), which he later submitted for his MD thesis in Edinburgh, and which includes the discovery of what he called “fixed air” and what we now call carbon dioxide.

For more information about Joseph Black visit the University of Glasgow's department of chemistry website.

1710-1790: William Cullen

Born in Lanarkshire, William Cullen studied medicine at Edinburgh where he was one of the founding members of the Royal Medical Society. He then started to teach at Glasgow University within the medical faculty and was the first to lecture in chemistry and establish chemical laboratories in 1747.

Chemistry was the subject which seems to have engaged the greatest share of his attention. He was himself a diligent investigator and experimenter, and did much to encourage original research among his pupils, one of whom was Joseph Black.

For more information about William Cullen visit the University of Glasgow's department of chemistry website.