Petrov, Grigorii Semenovich

Born Oct. 14 (26), 1886, in Kostroma; died Oct. 29, 1957, in Moscow. Soviet chemical engineer. Honored Worker in Science and Technology of the RSFSR (1957).

After graduating from the Kostroma Chemical Engineering School (1904), Petrov worked at industrial chemical laboratories in St. Petersburg and Moscow. From 1918 he worked in the Division of the Chemical Industry and the Central Chemical Laboratory of the Supreme Council on the National Economy and at the L. Ia. Karpov Physical Chemistry Institute. From 1931 until his death, he worked at the Moscow Scientific Research Institute of Plastics and taught at the D. I. Mendeleev Moscow Institute of Chemical Engineering. Petrov developed a method of refining petroleum with sulfuric acid (the “Petrov contact”) and obtained the first domestic plastic, carbolite. He was awarded the State Prize of the USSR in 1943 and 1949 and received two Orders of Lenin, three other orders, and several medals.