Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev

ГБПОУ "Тверской колледж имени А.Н.Коняева"

Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev

Russian inventor and chemist

Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev was born on 8 February 1834 near Tobolsk. He was a Russian inventor and chemist. The most famous invention of Mendeleev is periodic table of elements.

Greatest discoveries

In 1869 the great Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleyev announced the discovery of the Periodic Law of elements. So science received the key to the secrets of matter.

Mendeleyev’s discovery made it possible for the scientists to find 38 new chemical elements to fill the empty spaces left in the Periodic Table.

In 1955 the American scientist Dr. Glenn Seabord obtained element No 101 and named it Mendelevium in honor of the creator of the Periodic Law.

Early life

Mendeleev’s parents were Maria Mendeleeva and Ivan Mendeleev. Mendeleev was the youngest child. His father worked as a teacher but he became blind and stopped working. As a result Maria Mendeleeva began to work and re-established the glass factory which belonged to her family.

When Mendeleev was 13 he entered the Gymnasium in Tobolsk. In 1849 his family moved to Saint Petersburg. In 1850 Mendeleev joined The Main Pedagogical Institute. Following the graduation he developed tuberculosis and was forced to relocate to the Crimean Peninsula. Living there, Mendeleev became a science master of the Simferopol gymnasium #1. In 1857 after recovery he arrived in Saint Petersburg.

Later life

From 1859 to 1861 Mendeleev worked in Heidelberg and researched the capillarity of liquids. In April 1862 he married Feozva Nikitichna Leshcheva. Two years later Mendeleev became a professor at the Saint Petersburg Technological Institute. In 1865 he became a professor at Saint Petersburg State University.

The same year Mendeleev completed his dissertation "On the Combinations of Water with Alcohol". By 1871 Saint Petersburg was known as a center for chemistry research.

Mendeleev obtained a lot of awards from different scientific organizations but he resigned from Saint Petersburg University in 1890. Three years later Mendeleev was appointed Director of the Bureau of Weights and Measures.

Mendeleev also researched the composition of petroleum and made a contribution to the foundation of the first Russian oil refinery.  

Dmitri Mendeleev died of influenza in Saint Petersburg in 1907.

But nowadays everybody remembers him and his discoveries.