Glycerine is capable of being reacted as an alcohol yet stable under most conditions. With such an uncommon blend of properties, glycerine finds application among a broad diversity of end uses.
It's been known since 2800 BCE, when it was isolated by heating fat mixed with ashes to produce soap.
Carl Wilhelm Scheele, a German chemist, first discovered and isolated glycerin in 1778, while working on the saponification of olive oil with lead oxide.
Scheele called glycerine the "sweet principle of fat." Scheele later established that other metals and glycerides produce the same chemical reaction which yields glycerine and soap and, in 1783, he published a description of his method of preparation in Transactions of the Royal Academy of Sweden. Scheele's method was used to produce glycerine commercially for some years.
In 1811, French chemist M. E. Chevrel called glycerin a liquid, defining the chemical formulas of fatty acids and the formulas of glycerin in vegetable oil and animal fat. The name glycerine came after the Greek word, glykys, meaning sweet."
In 1823 Chevreul obtained the first patent for a new way to produce fatty acids from fats treated with an alkali, which included the recovery of glycerine released during the process.
In 1836, Théophile-Jules Pelouze, a French scientist proposed C3H8O3 as the empirical formula of glycerol and in 1886, the structural formula of C3H5(OH)3 was accepted, based on the work of two scientists named Berthelot and Lucea in 1883.
Pasteur, in 1857, showed alcoholic fermentation of sugars produced glycerin and succinic acid. Glycerin is an intermediate in cellular carbohydrate and lipid metabolism found naturally in all living organisms.
History discovery of glycerin
