Peter Bagrationi

Peter (Petre) Bagrationi or Pyotr Romanovich Bagration (September 12, 1818-January 17, 1876) was a Russian-Georgian statesman, general and scientist who invented the first dry galvanic cell.

Biography

A descendant of the Georgian Kings, both his father, Roman (Revaz) Bagrationi (1778-1834), and uncle, Pyotr Bagration (1765-1812), were famous generals.

In 1840 Bagrationi graduated from the Military Academy in(St.Petersburg, Russia). The following year he started his lifelong research at the Scientific Laboratory of Physics of the St.Petersburg Academy of Sciences (now Russian Academy of Sciences), under Academician B. Jacobi.

In 1862 Bagrationi was made the Governor of Tver province, and from 1870 until his death he was the Governor-General of the Baltic governorates (Courland, Livonia and Estonia).

He was awarded the Prize of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences in 1850, and received the rank of Lieutenant-General in 1865.

Bagrationi died in St.Petersburg on January 17, 1876.

cientific work

Bagrationi created the first dry galvanic cell in 1843 and published a monograph about it in 1845. ["Sur la priorite que possedent les cyanures potassiques et ferro-potassiques de dissoudre les metaux", No 3-6 of "the Bulletin of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences", published in London and Paris] In other works he examined the reactions occurring in the galvanic cell and in galvanoplastics.

In 1845 Bagrationi was sent by the Petersburg Academy of Sciences to Germany, France and England. He studied the solubility of metallic gold, silver and copper in aqueous solutions of cyanide compounds and was the first to discover the Elsner Equation, the stoichiometry of gold cyanidation.

In 1847 Bagrationi discovered a sorosilicate rich in rare earths which was named bagrationite in his honour, but it had already been described as allanite (or orthite).

References