Friedel–Crafts reaction

Photographs showing Charles Friedel and James Crafts

Source: © Getty Images

The coupling reactions developed by two lifelong friends

In 1932, an affectionate celebration of the life of Charles Friedel was published by Bulletin de la Société Chimique de France to mark the centenary of his birth. As a young man, Friedel had been a co-founder of the Société Chimique with Adolphe Wurtz in late 1850s Paris. An undemonstrative and quietly pious man, the centennial article comments that ‘Friedel did not have the eloquence of Wurtz, his voice did not carry’. But Charles Friedel’s voice is still heard, 140 years after his most famous discovery.