Chemistry Milestones at NRC

	Milestones of Canadian Chemistry in the 20th Century
	Many achievements in Canadian Chemistry – university, government and industry – were nominated as Milestones of Canadian Chemistry in the 20th Century at the Canadian Society for Chemistry exhibition in Calgary, Alberta in 2000. This project was made possible through the efforts of C. H. Langford, Department of Chemistry, University of Calgary.
	Chemistry breakthroughs: 1920 to today...
	> Prairie Concrete > The Pidgeon Process > Radioactive Tracers > Discovery of Cyanopolyacetylene > Meningitis Vaccine ... And much more!!

Dr. Keith Ingold was a pioneer in understanding the role of Vitamin E in medicine and health as an antioxidant. He applied the chemistry of free radicals in living organisms!

Find out more about Dr. Ingold's accomplishments and the achievements of other Canadian chemists who worked at the National Research Council throughout the 20th century!

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1920's

• Solving the Prairie Concrete Problem – Dr. Thorbergur Thorvaldson and his team, devised a steam curing technique that changed the crystalline structure of the concrete compounds, making them virtually immune to alkali damage.

1930's

• Development of Fractionating Columns and More – Donald Stedman's work in the early 1930s on development of the Turner Valley gas deposits was the impetus that steered him into the problems of fractional distillation.
  
  
• Herzberg Monographs on Molecular Spectroscopy – Gerhard Herzberg wrote six books on spectroscopy, not counting the many translations. The three volumes of the monograph Molecular Spectra and Molecular Structure are perhaps the best known and most influential

1940's

• E.W.R. Steacie and the NRC Post-Doctoral Fellowship Program – Edgar William Richard (Ned) Steacie sought to strengthen research in Canada, not only at NRC, but at Canadian universities and many government laboratories.
  
  
• Post-War Research on Radioisotope Applications – During World War II, J.W.T. Spinks gained first hand knowledge of two new areas, operations research and atomic energy, and applied these to his first research interest, chemistry.
  
  
• The Pidgeon Process in Magnesium Production – The process to extract magnesium developed Lloyd Montgomery Pidgeon and his associates is still in use today.

1950's

• High-Resolution Nuclear Magnetic Resonance – Pople, Schneider and Bernstein – Today, the true impact of high resolution NMR spectroscopy is quite apparent. Few chemists, biologists or physicists do not encounter NMR spectroscopy in one form or other.
  
  
• Mass Spectrometry of Free Radicals – The important modern technique of mass spectrometry was significantly enhanced by Frederick Lossing in the years after World War II, with his construction of a Nier-type mass spectrometer.
  
  
• Pioneering Work in Alkaloid Chemistry – Much of our knowledge of the alkaloids of Canadian Fumariaceous plants was acquired by Richard Manske during his career at NRC and elsewhere. Significantly, he did not enjoy the benefit of modern analytical and spectroscopic tools.
  
  
• Radioactive Tracers in the Study of Natural Product Biosynthesis – Leo Marion's most novel contribution was to exploit the post-war availability of simple Carbon-14 molecules to study the biosynthesis of many alkaloids.
  
  
• Spectra of Various Gas-Phase Polyatomic Free Radicals – An important development in the 1950's involved the study, by three National Research Council scientists, Gerhard Herzberg, D.A. Ramsay, and A.E. Douglas, the absorption spectra of polyatomic free radicals using high resolution techniques.
  
  
• University Research in Chemistry in the 1950's – In the early 1950's, the National Research Council, under the leadership of E.W.R. Steacie, embarked upon a vigorous programme of grants-in-aid of research for individuals in university science departments.

1960's

• Quantifying Free Radical Chemistry – When Dr. Keith Ingold began his research mid-century, the chemistry of intermediaries, such as free radicals, was largely unknown. His interest in highly reactive intermediates that have a very short lifetime allowed him to develop methods to detect these molecules and to measure their behaviour.
  
  
• Role of Passive Oxide Films in Governing Corrosion Processes – Morris Cohen's views about passivating films have stood the test of time, establishing him as a leader of international stature in this field.
  
  
• Temperature Programmed Desorption: A Fundamental Tool in Catalysis – Surface science laboratories include in their suite of basic instrumentation a Temperature Programmed Desorption (TPD) apparatus, conceived at NRC.
  
  
• Theory of Higher-Order Effects in Vibration-Rotation Spectra of Semi-Rigid Molecules – As the world's acknowledged authority on the theory of the vibrations and rotations of molecules and on the interactions among these motions and of the electrons in the molecule, James K.G. Watson has built the foundation on which much of modern vibration-rotation spectroscopy is based.

1970's

• Discovery of Cyanopolyacetylene in the Interstellar Medium – An exciting development in the 1970's involved the discovery of cyanopolyacetylenes in the interstellar medium by means of the radio telescope of the Algonquin Radio Observatory (ARO) near Lake Traverse in Algonquin Park, Ontario.
  
  
• Mass Spectroscopy of Canola Oil – Dr. Burton Craig and Dr. R. Keith Downey's discoveries and interlocked efforts effected the radical re-design of rapeseed crops possessing barely edible oils into modern-day canola types yielding the world's most nutritionally desirable oils.

1980's

• Intermetallic Crystallographic Database – During the period 1960-1980, National Research Council crystallographers Larry Calvert, John Byron, Florence Lee, Yu Wang, and John Rodgers compiled an evaluated database of the structures of metals and intermetallic compounds.
  
  
• NRCVAX Crystal Structure Analysis System – Changing the way crystallographers work and serving as a model for current commercial packages, the NRCVAX crystal structure analysis system marks a significant milestone for the advancement of chemical sciences in the 20th century.
  
  
• The Steam Tables and the Structure of Ice – Edward (Ted) Whalley and George Kell worked together for many years, and with colleague G. E. McLaurin. They established a new fundamental equation for the thermodynamic properties of water and steam.

1990's

• Carbohydrate Chemistry and Meningitis Vaccine – Harold Jennings specializes in the study of polysaccharides of important human pathogenic bacteria, particularly their structure, conformation, immunobiology and role in causing disease. Dr. Jennings and his team are known for work on vaccines for infant meningitis for which the first patent was issued in 1995.