Ivan Alekseevich Kablukov

Born Aug 21 (Sept 2), 1857, in the village of Prussy, Moscow Province; died May 5, 1942, in Tashkent. Soviet physical chemist. Honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1932; corresponding member, 1928). Honored Scientist of the RSFSR (1929); honored professor of Moscow University from 1910.

In 1880, Kablukov graduated from Moscow University, where he studied chemistry with V. V. Markovnikov. In 1881, under A. M. Butlerov, he completed the study A New Method of Obtaining Oxymethylene at the University of St. Petersburg. In 1885 he became a privatdocent at Moscow University. In 1889 he worked in Leipzig under W. Ostwald and in 1891 defended his doctoral dissertation, Contemporary Theories of Solutions (Van’t Hojfs and Arrhenius’) in Connection With Studies on Chemical Equilibrium. Kablukov was elected professor of chemistry at the Moscow Institute of Agriculture and Moscow University in 1903. At the same time he was acting as consultant at the Institute for Fertilizers and Insectofungicides and the Institute of Applied Mineralogy. He conducted fundamental research on the electrochemistry of nonaqueous solutions. Kablukov introduced the concept of ion solvation (at the same time but independently of V. A. Kistiakovskii), which served as the basis for combining the chemical and physical theories on solutions. He was the first to demonstrate (1887) that the heat of formation for molecules of isomeric organic compounds is not identical. Between 1904 and 1907, Kablukov used thermoanalysis to study the reciprocal systems of fused salts. He developed a method of obtaining bromine from the brine of Lake Saki in the Crimea.

The author of a number of works on the history of chemistry, Kablukov was an active participant in the work of scientific societies, for example, the Russian Physiocochemical Society. He was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.