Charles Derosne was a French chemist, pharmacist, inventor and scientist, who was one of the first in France to design a distillation apparatus and produce beet sugar.
Background
Charles Derosne was born on January 23, 1780 in Paris, France. He belonged to a family of pharmacists. His father, François Derosne, was associated with the famous Paris apothecary Louis-Claude Cadet (known as Cadet de Gassicourt). His mother was Anne Godefroy.
After the death of François Derosne in 1796, the Cadet-Derosne pharmacy on the rue St. Honoré was taken over by Derosne’s older brother, Jean-François, whose chemical analysis of opium foreshadowed the emergence of alkaloid chemistry as an important field of research.
Career
For a time Derosne was associated with Jean-François in the practice of pharmacy and in several joint scientific and technological projects. Perhaps the most important result of their collaboration was the investigation in 1807 of the properties of acetone, which they prepared by distilling copper acetate.
Pharmacy proved too confining, however, for Derosne, who very early in his career demonstrated a remarkable ability for technological innovation. A lifelong interest in improving methods of sugar production led him to introduce new techniques and equipment into sugar technology. In 1808 he refined crude sugar with alcohol, and by 1811 he was able to improve on the methods of beet sugar manufacture described by the contemporary German chemists S. F. Hermbstadt and F. C. Achard. Derosne’s innovations and observations were included in his notes to the French translation of Achard’s treatise on beet sugar manufacture, published with Angar in 1812. Derosne prepared animal charcoal and used it to purify sugar syrup. In 1817 he invented a continuous distillation apparatus and shortly thereafter began to produce other machinery of value in sugar refining at his plant in Chaillot.
Derosne’s subsequent partnership with one of his employees, J. F. Cail, resulted in a rapid expansion and diversification of his business. The Derosne-Cail establishment moved into the manufacture of industrial machinery, locomotives, and railway equipment. By the time of Derosne’s death in 1846, an industrial empire had been founded, with factories in Paris, Belgium, Cuba, and Denain, and in 1847 branches were opened in Valenciennes, Douai, and Amsterdam.
Membership
Derosne was admitted to the Academy of Medicine in Paris in 1823.
