Prafulla Chandra Ray, The Father of Indian Chemical Science
Prafulla Chandra Ray, The Father of Indian Chemical Science
Acharya Sir Prafulla Chandra Ray was an Indian Chemist, industrialist and educationist. He is considered the father of Indian Chemical Science. He founded the first pharmaceutical company in India named Bengal Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals. He was regarded as "Master of Nitrites". He is one of the best scientists that India has ever produced.
Family and Education
Prafulla Chandra Ray was born on 2 August 1861 at "Raruli-Katipara" village in Jessore district, Bengal Presidency, British India (now in Bangladesh). His father was Harish Chandra Raychowdhury who was a Kayastha zamindar. His mother was Bhubanmohini Devi. Prafulla was the third one among his seven siblings. His great grandfather Maniklal was a renowned dewan under British rule. He and his family had a connection with 'Brahma Samaj' created by Raja Rammohan Ray.
Prafulla's father used to run a school in the village. So, he studied in his father's school till class eight. Then their family moved to Kolkata. There, he was admitted to the Hare School. In 1874, when Ray was in the fourth standard, he suffered a severe attack of dysentery and was consequently forced to postpone his studies and return to his ancestral home. Later he made a full recovery but he suffered residual bouts of indigestion and insomnia for the rest of his life.
In 1876, Prafulla was admitted to the Albert School. He passed the School's entrance examination with a first division and was admitted as an FA student to the Metropolitan Institution ( now Vidyasagar College). There he got Mr Surendranath Banarjee as his teacher, later who was the president of Indian National Congress.
While studying at Albert College, Prafulla attended Physics and Chemistry lectures as an external student at the Presidency College. Famous experimentalist Alexander Pedler was a lecturer there. He inspired Prafulla to take Chemistry as a career. Ray set up a miniature Chemistry laboratory at a classmate's lodgings and started performing different experiments.
Prafulla passed the FA examination in 1881 with a second division. Then he was admitted to Calcutta University for a BA degree. Eventually, he was able to manage the prestigious 'Gilchrist Prize Scholarship' and enrolled as a BSc student at the University of Edinburgh. He received his BSc degree in 1885. Then he went for doctoral studies under the supervision of Crum Brown.
Prafulla Chandra Ray remained unmarried all his life. He lived twenty years in a simple room on the University campus. Even he shared his room with poor students who could not afford to have one.
More Read: Jagadish Chandra Bose, The Father of Radio Sciences
Research Works
Prafulla Chandra Ray was very much interested in inorganic chemistry. Then researches in this field appeared to be making limited progress compared to organic chemistry Ray decided to explore the specific natures of structural affinities in double salts as the subject of his thesis. He started significant researches on double sulfates. He succeeded to synthesize some double salts in the laboratory.
Around 1895 Prafulla Chandra started his work in the field of discovering nitrite chemistry which turned out to be extremely effective. He published a paper on the preparation of a new stable chemical compound 'mercurous nitrate' in 1896. He said that it was a new chapter in life that started with the unanticipated discovery of mercurous nitrite.
Ammonium nitrite synthesis is a pure form through double displacement ammonium between chloride and silver nitrite is one of the notable contributions of Ray. He prepared a lot of such compounds by double displacement. He worked on mercury alkyl and mercury alkyl aryl ammonium nitrites as well.
Prafulla Chandra Ray was preliminary an inorganic chemist. He also researched organic molecules and reactions more specifically to thio-organic compounds. During his work in the Calcutta University College of Science, he formed a team and started working on compounds of gold, platinum, iridium etc with mercaptyl radicals and organic sulphides.
Famous Indian Scientists like Meghnad Saha and Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar were among his students.
He wrote 107 papers in all branches of Chemistry by 1920. All his papers were published in famous journals and were praised by world-famous scientists.
Career
Prafulla was a very inspiring teacher and dedicated his spare time to research. In 1901, he single-handedly established the Bengal Chemical and Pharmaceutical works limited, the first-ever Indian pharmaceutical company.
He had a great career as a teacher. He served as a professor in different universities. He ended up his active teaching career in 1936 at the age of 75 after almost 30 years of service.
Prafulla Chandra Ray was a professor of Presidency College, Kolkata and Calcutta University College of Science. He was also a Palit Professor of Chemistry.
Apart from that. Ray served as
- President of Indian Science Congress in 1920
- Vice President of the University of Edinburgh Chemical Society in 1888.
- President of the National Council of Education
Prafulla Chandra Ray was sympathetic towards the revolutionaries against British rule. He observed the deterioration of Indian society due to impressions by the British.
He also contributed a lot to Bengali Scientific literature. His autobiography "Life and Experience of a Bengali Chemist" was published in 1932 (volume I) and 1935 (volume II). He researched through ancient Sanskrit manuscripts and through works of orientalists and portrayed the results on the book "Earliest Times to the Middle of Sixteenth Century". His other popular writings are Essays on India, Chemical Research at the Presidency College, Calcutta, Saral Prani Biggan (Bengali) etc.
This great man donated to establish different institutions and colleges. When he reached 60 years, he donated all his salary for the rest of his service in the university fund for the development of the Department of Chemistry and for the creation of two research fellowships. He also donated 10 thousand Indian rupees for an annual research prize in chemistry named after the great Indian Chemist Nagarjuna and another 10 thousand for a research prize in Biology named after Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee.
More Read: Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, The Evolutionary Astrophysicist
His contribution to the Indian industry was even greater than his research works. He helped many other textile factories, soap factories, sugar mills, chemical industries, ceramic factories to set up apart from Bengal Pharmaceuticals limited. He was the driving force behind the modern industrialization of the country.
Awards and Recognition
Acharya Sir Prafulla Chandra Ray was awarded numerous awards and gained prestigious recognition from world-famous institutions. Some of them are mentioned here:
- Faraday Gold Medal of the University of Edinburgh
- Hope prize
- Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal
- Companion of the order of the Indian Empire
- Fellow of the Chemical Society
- Bachelor of Knight
- Honorary Member of the Deutsche Akademiw, Munich
- Honorary Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Calcutta
- Foundation Fellow of the National Institute of Sciences of India
- Honorary DSc degree from Durham University
- Fellow of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science
- Honorary degree from the Vanaras Hindu University
- Honorary DSc degree from the University of Dhaka
- Honorary DSc degree from the University of Allahabad
- Chemical Landmark Plaque of the Royal Society of Chemistry
Death
Prafulla Chandra Ray breathed his last on June 16th,1944 in Calcutta, British India. He died in the same room he had occupied for twenty-five years. He was 83 years old at the time.
Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray was a great patriot and highly influenced by leaders like S.N Banarjee and Mahatma Gandhi. He was a relentless social worker as well. He organised Bengal Relief Committee during the flood in Northern Bengal in 1923. The committee collected nearly 2.5 million rupees in cash and distributed all of it among the flood-affected people. He also donated money regularly towards welfare of Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, Brahmo Girls' School and Indian Chemical Society.
sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prafulla_Chandra_Ray
https://www.famousscientists.org/prafulla-chandra-ray/
https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/prafulla-chandra-ray-6360.php
