Regnault, Henri Victor 1810-78
French chemist and physicist

Born in Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen, Germany), he studied at the �cole Polytechnique in Paris from 1829, and later at the �cole des Mines. He worked with Justus von Liebig at Giessen and received an appointment at Lyons. In 1840 he became Professor of Chemistry at the �cole Polytechnique and in 1841 Professor of Physics at the Coll�ge de France. In 1847 he published a major treatise on chemistry. In 1854 he was appointed director of the porcelain factory at S�vres. His early research was in organic chemistry. He carried out extensive studies of aliphatic chloro-compounds, and discovered vinyl chloride and other materials which have become industrially important. He improved the techniques for determining the specific heats of solids and liquids, and devised a method for determining the specific heats of gases. His laboratory at S�vres was wrecked in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the results of much of his later work were lost. Regnault was admitted to the Legion of Honour in 1850. He received the Rumford (1848) and Copley (1869) medals of the Royal Society, and was made an honorary Fellow of the Chemical Society in 1849.