Nikolai Nikolaevich Sokolov
Sokolov, Nikolai Nikolaevich
Born Dec. 1 (13), 1826, in Yaroslavl Province; died July 13 (25), 1877, in St. Petersburg. Russian chemist.
Sokolov graduated from the University of St. Petersburg in 1847 and then worked with J. von Liebig and C. Gerhardt. In 1859 and 1860 he published Khimicheskii zhurnal N. Sokolova i A. Engel’gardta (Chemical Journal of N. Sokolov and A. Engel’gardt), the first Russian journal of chemistry, of which 24 books in four volumes were issued. Beginning in 1864, he held the chair in chemistry at Novorossiia University in Odessa, and in 1871, at the St. Petersburg Institute of Forestry and Land Cultivation.
Sokolov studied the various functional characteristics of hydrogen in organic compounds. He also established, using as examples glycolic, lactic, β-hydroxypropionic, and glyceric acids, that in hydroxy acids some of the hydrogen atoms are acidic, while others are alcoholic.