Charles Adolphe Wurtz

Adolphe Wurtz
Born(1817-11-26)26 November 1817
Wolfisheim, near Strasbourg, France
Died10 May 1884(1884-05-10) (aged 66)
Paris, France
NationalityFrench
Alma materUniversity of Strasbourg
Known forWurtz reaction
AwardsFaraday Lectureship Prize (1879)
Copley Medal (1881)
Scientific career
FieldsChemistry
Doctoral advisorAmédée Cailliot
Other academic advisorsJustus von Liebig
Doctoral studentsCharles Friedel
Armand Gautier
Other notable studentsJacobus Henricus van 't Hoff
Alexander Zaytsev

Charles Adolphe Wurtz (French: [vyʁts]; 26 November 1817 – 10 May 1884) was an Alsatian French chemist. He is best remembered for his decades-long advocacy for the atomic theory and for ideas about the structures of chemical compounds, against the skeptical opinions of chemists such as Marcellin Berthelot and Henri Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville. He is well known by organic chemists for the Wurtz reaction, to form carbon-carbon bonds by reacting alkyl halides with sodium, and for his discoveries of ethylamine, ethylene glycol, and the aldol reaction. Wurtz was also an influential writer and educator.