Synthetic alizarin
Alizarina sintética
- Date
- 1868 · confidence high
- Place
- Berlin, Germany
- Credited to
- Carl Graebe and Carl Liebermann (parallel patent by William Perkin)
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Industrial synthesis of the red dye of the madder root from coal-tar anthracene. It was the first natural dye artificially reproduced on an industrial scale and ruined madder cultivation.
Graebe and Liebermann patented the synthesis in Prussia in 1868 and in Britain on 25 June 1869; Perkin filed a patent with a different method the next day. Priority is disputed; Caro and BASF industrialised it in 1869.
What it led to
- collapse of madder cultivation in France and the Netherlands
- BASF and Hoechst as leaders of dye chemistry
- cheap and stable Turkey red for cotton