Nikitin, Nikolai

Nikitin, Nikolai Ignat’evich

 

Born Feb. 28 (Mar. 12), 1890, in St. Petersburg. Soviet chemist. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1939).

Upon graduating from the St. Petersburg Institute of Forestry (now the S. M. Kirov Leningrad Academy of Forestry) in 1913, Nikitin began working there, becoming a professor in 1929. From 1936 to 1946 he also worked at Leningrad State University. Beginning in 1958 he first was head of a laboratory at the Institute of Macromolecular Compounds and subsequently a consultant.

Nikitin’s main works are devoted to such problems in the study of cellulose and wood as the activation of cellulose and the synthesis and characterization of cellulose esters with low degrees of substitution. He developed techniques for the preparation and fractionation of wood cellulose for the viscose process (the production of rayon) and studied the chemical composition of softwoods and hardwoods native to the USSR. Nikitin has been awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and several medals.

WORKS

Kolloidnye rastvory i efiry tselliulozy, 2nd ed. Leningrad, 1933.
Khimiia drevesiny i tselliulozy. Moscow-Leningrad, 1962.
“Na puti nauchnogo rabotnika—khimika.” [Ocherki iz proshlogo, 2nd ed.] Leningrad, 1969.

REFERENCES

Komarov, F. P., and S. D. Antonovskii. “N. I. Nikitin (Nauchno-biblio-graficheskii ocherk ko dniu 60-letiia so dnia rozhdeniia i 36-letiia nauchno-pedagogicheskoi deiatel’nosti).” Zhurnal obshchei khimii, 1950, vol. 20, issue 4.
Solechnik, N. Ia. “N. I. Nikitin (K 70-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia).” Zhurnal prikladnoi khimii. 1960, issue 3, p. 515.