Lovits, Tovii Egorovich
Lovits, Tovii Egorovich
(Johann Tobias Lowitz). Born Apr. 14 (25), 1757, in Göttingen; died Nov. 25 (Dec. 7), 1804, in St. Petersburg. Russian chemist and pharmacist of German origin (came to Russia in 1768). Academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1793).
Lovits studied at the academic Gymnasium in St. Petersburg. He worked in St. Petersburg at the Main Pharmacy and taught chemistry and pharmacy at the St. Petersburg Medical School and the Medical and Surgical Academy. Lovits discovered the adsorption of dissolved materials on charcoal in 1785 and proposed the use of the adsorption method for the purification of alcohol and other substances. He prepared glacial acetic acid (1789), the crystalline hydrates of a number of salts, and absolute alcohol. In addition, he developed a method for the separation of barium, strontium, and calcium based on the solubility of their chlorides in absolute alcohol (1795).