Ipatieff, Vladimir Nikolayevich

Vladimir Nikolayevich Ipatieff, Ipatieff also spelled Ipatyev, (born November 21 [November 9, Old Style], 1867, Moscow, Russia—died November 29, 1952, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.), Russian-born American chemist who was one of the first to investigate high-pressure catalytic reactions of hydrocarbons and who directed research teams that developed several processes for refining petroleum into high-octane gasoline.

In 1887 Ipatieff became an officer in the Imperial Russian Army and later attended the Mikhail Artillery Academy (1889–92), St. Petersburg, where he served first as instructor of chemistry (1892–98) and then as professor of chemistry and explosives (1898–1906). In 1897 he went to Munich to study the chemistry of gunpowder. While there he synthesized and proved the structure of isoprene, the basic molecular unit of natural rubber. Continuing his studies in organic chemistry after his return to Russia, he soon learned to control and direct high-pressure catalytic reactions, demonstrating that inorganic compounds can induce chemical reactions in organic compounds. To conduct his high-pressure experiments, he designed a novel autoclave, sealed by a gasket made of copper, that became known as the “Ipatieff bomb.” A dissertation based on his research earned him a doctorate in chemistry from the University of St. Petersburg (1908).

During World War I, Ipatieff, by then a lieutenant general in the army, was appointed chairman of various committees that directed the wartime efforts of the chemical industry, including the development of poison gas and defenses against poison gas. In 1916 he was elected to the Russian Academy of Sciences. In spite of his anticommunist feelings, he continued to work for the government after the Russian Revolution, and in 1927 he was awarded a Lenin Prize for his work in catalysis. However, he grew worried about the arrest of numerous fellow scientists, and in 1930 he left the U.S.S.R. with his wife for a conference in Germany and never returned. He accepted a position as director of chemical research with the Universal Oil Products Company (UOP) in Chicago and also became a lecturer in organic chemistry at Northwestern University.

At the UOP laboratory Ipatieff applied his catalytic processes to the manufacture of high-octane gasoline from low-value feedstock. He and his team developed a process in which certain light olefins present in waste gas, when subjected to heat and pressure in the presence of phosphoric acid and kieselguhr, are induced to polymerize into liquid olefins that can be further refined into gasoline. They also developed an alkylation reaction in which two smaller molecules, one an olefin and the other an isoparaffin (usually isobutane), combine under the influence of a sulfuric acid catalyst to produce a high-octane longer-chain molecule. To produce the isobutane feedstock for the alkylation reaction, the team developed an isomerization process that produced the branched-chain isobutane from abundant straight-chain “normal butane.” Ipatieff’s polymerization, alkylation, and isomerization processes became essential to the production of high-octane gasoline during World War II.

Ipatieff won numerous prizes, became a U.S. citizen in 1937, and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1939. In 1945 his memoirs of his life and work in Russia were published in English as The Life of a Chemist.