Louis Bouveault

Louis Bouveault (11 February 1864 – 5 September 1909) was a French scientist who became professor of organic chemistry at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Paris. He is known for the Bouveault aldehyde synthesis and the Bouveault–Blanc reduction.

Life

Louis Bouveault was born on 11 February 1864 in Nevers. He obtained doctorates in Paris in medicine and physical sciences. Bouveault defended his thesis on β-keto nitriles and their derivatives in Paris in 1890. He taught for a short period at the Medical Faculty in Lyon, then became a lecturer in general chemistry in Lyon. He influenced Victor Grignard to take up chemistry in 1894. In Lyon he investigated syntheses with camphor and terpenes.

Bouveault moved on from Lyon to Lille, Nancy and finally to Paris. He was appointed professor of organic chemistry at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Paris.

In 1903 Bouveault and Gustave Louis Blanc described the Bouveault–Blanc reduction for reduction of esters to the corresponding alcohols in an alcoholic solvent.

In 1904 he described the Bouveault aldehyde synthesis, a formylation of an alkyl or aryl halide to the homologous aldehyde or carbaldehyde.

In 1907 he was elected president of the . He died on 5 September 1909.

Publications Bouveault was a prolific author, who published many papers in his short career. Two longer works: