Ivan Ludvigovich Knunyants: From Akrikhin to Perfluorane

Abstract

Academician I.L. Knunyants has made significant contributions to almost all the fields of organic chemistry that have been studied in the USSR. He is the founder of fluroorganic compounds chemistry. This is the field of chemistry that studies fluroorganic compounds of phosphorous, sulfur, selenium and others, he is also the founder of industrial scale production of teflon, kapron and nylon; he has contributed greatly to the development of antimalarial drugs, blood substitute called perfluoran, hydrogen cyanide antidotal substances and cytostatic antineoplastic drugs.Relevance. If we forget prominent persons in Soviet and Russian science, it will turn Russia into a colony of the West, and we will lose our self-esteem and will not be able to go forward and to progress. The last paper devoted to the biography and scientific contributions of a major general and engineer I.L. Knunyants (1906–1990) was published in 1996. From that time on the publications contained only the list of his main achievements, and even that is mostly forgotten.Purpose of the study is summarize and systematize the main data on the scientific career of academician I. L. Knunyants and to describe it in the light of events that happened in the 20th century and influenced our history Study base sources. Documents the contain information on I.L. Knunyants’ biography as well as on his inventions (including his own scientific works).Materials and methods. Descriptive method has been employed in this study. Results. The authors have considered the way of I.L. Knunyants as a scientist, how he decided to become one, the main fields of his activity as a scientist, as a teacher and as a member of society, his main achievements and inventions.Conclusions. Studies that were conducted by I.L. Knunyants were quite efficient and fruitful and had a practical focus. They were in-depth studies of fluoroorganic sulphurorganic phosphrous organic and heterocyclic compounds. I.L. Knunyants obtained important results for pharmacology (anti-malarial and carcinolytic drugs, artificial blood substitute) worked on the ways of developing drugs and polymers, has obtained efficient photosensitizers.

Keywords

• acrichine
• fluoroorganic compounds chemistry
• fluoropolymers
• hexaphosphamide
• i.l. knunyants.
• knunyants’ realignment
• “lacton of knunyants”
• lophenalum
• paphencylum
• perfluoran
• ε-caprolactam polymerization