Nikolai Vorozhtsov

Born Apr. 16 (28), 1881, in Irkutsk; died Aug. 9, 1941, in Moscow. Soviet organic chemist; one of the organizers of the aniline-dye industry.

Vorozhtsov graduated from the Kharkov Technological Institute in 1904 and taught in a number of institutions of higher education beginning in that year. In 1916 he became the head of the first industrial dye laboratory, Russko-kraska (later the Institute of Organic Semifinished Articles and Dyes). In 1924 he became the head of a subdepartment at the D. I. Mendeleev Moscow Chemical-Engineering Institute. Vorozhtsov was the founder of a large school of chemists working on dye substances. He was for a number of years the organizer and editor of the journal Khimicheskaia promyshlennost’ (Chemical Industry). He began his scientific work while still a student in the laboratory of Professor A. P. Lidov. In 1912 he synthesized the first thioindigo dyes of the naphthalene series; he did research on the structure of hydrogen sulfite compounds of naphthols, their derivatives, and azo dyes and established the applicability of the hydrogen sulfite reaction to quinoline derivatives. A number of his works were devoted to the chemistry of naphthalene derivatives—in particular the dependence on structure of the ability of azo dyes of the naphthalene series to dye cotton-textile fibers—and to chlorination and alkaline fusion reactions. He was the author of the monograph Foundations of the Synthesis of Intermediate Products and Dyes (published posthumously in 1950 and 1955; prepared for publication by his son, N. N. Vorozhtsov), which has been translated into German (1966) and other languages. He was awarded the State Prize of the USSR posthumously in 1952.