Pietro Biginelli

Pietro Biginelli (July 25th 1860 –January 15th 1937) was an Italian chemist, who have discovered a three-component reaction between urea, acetoacetic ester and aldehydes (Biginelli reaction). He also was studying various aspects of sanitation chemistry and chemical products' quality control.

Biography

He was born at July 25th 1860 in Palazzolo Vercellese which was back then the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. He attended the University of Torino, studying under Professor Icilio Guareschi, a well-known Italian chemist and chemistry historian.Istituto Superiore di Sanitа. Microanalisi elementare organica. Collezione di strumenti a cura di Anna Farina e Cecilia Bedetti. 2007, I beni storico-scientifi ci dell’Istituto Superiore di Sanitа, p 24] It is known that at 1885 he was already a 4th year student. [Annuario della r. Universita degli studi di Torino per l'anno accademico. By Università di Torino, Università di Torino, 1885, p. 310]

By 1891 Biginelli works at the chemical laboratory at Florence University,Biginelli P. Ueber Aldehyduramide des Acetessigaethers. "Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft", 1891, vol. 24, p.1317-1319.] where 2 years later he develops a method which later will be known as Biginelli Pyrimidine synthesis [Bigineli P. Derivati aldeiduredici degli eteri acetil- e dossal-acetico. "Gazzetta Chimica Italiana", 1893, vol. 23, pp. 360 – 416] "J. Chem. Soc.", Abstr., 1893, p. 645] . At 1897 he is already at Rome, as a privatdozent. [Ludtke G. "Minerva", 1897, p. ?]

At 1901 Pietro Biginelli, as coadjutor, moves to the Chemical Laboratory of State Medicine in Rome, where he was working as an assistant to Bartolomeo Gosio, [Istituto Superiore di Sanitа. Microanalisi elementare organica. Collezione di strumenti a cura di Anna Farina e Cecilia Bedetti. 2007, I beni storico-scientifi ci dell’Istituto Superiore di Sanitа, p 25] a chemist famous for discovery of arsenic-containing volatile gas known as “Gosio gas”.Gosio, B., Action de quelques moisissures sure les composeґs fixes d’aґrsenic. "Arch. Ital. Biol"., 1893, vol. 18, pp. 253–265.] From 1925 to 1928 Biginelli worked as a director of the above-mentioned Chemical Laboratory.Istituto Superiore di Sanitа. Microanalisi elementare organica. Collezione di strumenti a cura di Anna Farina e Cecilia Bedetti. 2007, I beni storico-scientifi ci dell’Istituto Superiore di Sanitа, p 26]

He died in Rome, at January 15th, 1937.

Scientific interests

Pietro Biginelli’s first known scientific work, in which he was a co-author to his mentor Icilio Guareschi, was focused on synthesis and reactivity of chlorobromonaphtalene ["J. Chem. Soc., Abstr"., 1887, vol. 52, pp. 1088 – 1127] ["Chem. Zentr"., 1887, pp. 518--519] . Already in the University of Florence, Biginelli described a three-component reaction between urea, aldehyde and ethyl acetoacetate, which was at first incorrectly interpreted as one leading to the formation of alpha-benzuramido-crotonacetic ester, or ethyl-alpha-salicyluramido-crotonate [Biginelli P. Ueber Aldehyduramide des Acetessigaethers II. "Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft", 1891, vol. 24, p.2962 – 2967] ["J. Chem. Soc.", Abstr., 1892, 62, p. 56] with open-chain acyclic structures. However, later he corrected himself and expanded his initial studies, ["Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft" , 1893, vol. 26, 4, p. 447] showing that the end products actually were pyrimidines. However, Biginelli did not change the chemical names presented earlier.

Another scope of his research interests emerged when he was an assistant to Bartolomeo Gosio. At that time it was known that certain poisonous volatile arsenic species tend to form at molds growing on wallpapers painted by arsenic-containing paints. [Fleck, H.Z., Ueber den Arsengehalt der Zimmerluft. "Zeitschrift für Biologie", 1872. vol. 8, pp. 444–456.] Finally Gosio and Biginelli succeeded in isolating and analyzing the species: when Gosio gas was passed into a solution of mercuric chloride in dilute HCl (Biginelli’s solution) a crystalline precipitate was formed.

A small vial of the Gosio/Biginelli mercurichloride is to this day preserved at The Museum of the History of Medicine (Museo di Storia della Medicina) in Rome, Italy. Under the printed name “Laboratorio Batteriologico della Sanità Pubblica” is handwritten, “arsina penicillare comp. mercurico”. [Bentley R., Chasteen T.G. Microbial Methylation of Metalloids: Arsenic, Antimony, and Bismuth. "Microbiology and molecular biology reviews", 2002, p. 250 – 251.] From analysis of this material [Biginelli, P. Composizione e costituzione chimica del gas arsenicale delle tappezzerie. Nota I. "Atti Reale Accad. Lincei" , 1900, vol. 9, pp. 210–214.] [Biginelli, P. Composizione e costituzione chimica del gas arsenicale delle tappezzerie. Nota II. "Atti Reale Accad. Lincei" , 1900, vol. 9, pp. 242–249.] and of the gas itself it appeared that the gas was diethylarsine. Later, however, it was found that gas discovered by Gosio and Biginelli was in fact trimethylarsine [Challenger, F. Biological methylation. "Chem. Rev.", 1945, vol. 36, pp. 315–361.] [Challenger, F., C. Higginbottom, L. Ellis. The formation of organo-metalloid compounds by microorganisms. Part I. Trimethylarsine and dimethylethylarsine. "J. Chem. Soc". 1933, pp. 95–101] .

From other scientific efforts of Pietro Biginelli it should be noted that in 1911 he on the basis of the property shown by tannin of forming additive products with water, alcohol and ether, (which is stable even in a vacuum) and also on the loss of carbon dioxide and water with formation of hexahydroxybenzophenone, when tannin is heated in aqueous solution with lead dioxide (the carbon dioxide liberated was estimated), stated that tannin has the formula C₄₁H₃₂O₂₅ and that it is probably a glucoside. [Molinari E. Treatise on General and Industrial Organic Chemistry, pt. II, London, 1923, p. 689]

In 1914 Biginelli showed that aristoquinine and quinine carbonate placed in market by Bayer and Zimmer in 1898 were not the salts of carbonic acid, that true quinine carbonate is very bitter, that their action on the organism is slight and slow compared with that of quinine, and that euquinine is ethyl quinine carboxylate, C₂₀H₂₃O₂N₂ .COOC₂H₅, and aristochin, carbonylquinine, (C₂₀H₂₃O₂N₂ ) ₂CO. [Molinari E. Treatise on General and Industrial Organic Chemistry, pt. II, London, 1923, p.723]

After leaving his post as a director of Chemical Laboratory of State Medicine, Biginelli, as he himself stated, [Marotta D. Camillo Manuelli e Pietro Biginelli. "La Chimica e l’Industria", 1937, vol. 19, pp. 216-217.] focused mainly on the problems of chemical commodity research, e.g. distinguishing between true and false tannates of commercial quinine, artificial tannins, etc.

References