Grignard, François Auguste-Victor (1871-1935)

French chemist. In 1900 he discovered a series of organic compounds, the Grignard reagents, that found applications as some of the most versatile reagents in organic synthesis. Members of the class contain a hydrocarbon radical, magnesium, and a halogen such as chlorine. He shared the 1912 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Grignard was born in Cherbourg and studied at Lyon. He became professor at Nancy 1910. During World War I he headed a department at the Sorbonne concerned with the development of chemical warfare. From 1919 he was professor at Lyon. Grignard reagents added to formaldehyde (methanal) produce a primary alcohol; with any other aldehyde they form secondary alcohols, and added to ketones give rise to tertiary alcohols. They will also add to a carboxylic acid to produce first a ketone and ultimately a tertiary alcohol. His multivolume Traité de chimie organique began publication 1935.