Milestones of Canadian Chemistry

The 80-plus milestones of Canadian chemistry listed below are only some of the contributions made by chemists in Canada since 1900. We are gearing up for 2011, which has been declared the International Year of Chemistry (IYC) by the United Nations. During the 2011 celebrations, we will be tipping our hats to the contributions of Canadian chemical professionals to the well-being of society. Part of our preparation for IYC includes updating the current milestones and identifying those that have emerged in recent years.

This is a work in progress that requires input from everybody. If you have suggestions for additional milestones, before and after 2000, please let us know at funscience@cheminst.ca.

In the meantime full description of our current Milestones of Canadian Chemistry

1990s

Science and Technology of Social Insect Pheromones (Slessor)
Enhanced Oil Recovery With Surfactant-Stabilized Foams (Schramm)
Free Radical Polymerization Process (Georges, Xerox Research Centre)
Natural Product Chemistry and Ecology of Cold-Water Organisms (Andersen)
Morphologies of Nanometre-Sized Block Copolymer Aggregates (Eisenberg)
Photochemical Metal Organic Deposition (Hill)

1980s

Intermetallic Crystallographic Database (NRC)
Discovery of the “Distonic” Ion Structure in the Gas Phase (Holmes)
A Carbohydrate Odyssy: From Sucrose and Coupling Constants to Blood Determinants (Lemieux)
Development of Visudyne (Dolphin)
A Machine for Making Genes (Ogilvie)
The Antiviral Drug Ganciclovir (Ogilvie)
C-H Bond Activation of Saturated Hydrocarbons by Soluble Transition Metal Complexes (Graham)
Carbohydrate Chemistry and Meningitis Vaccine (Jennings)
The Steam Tables and the Structure of Ice (Whalley and Kell)
The World’s Only X-Ray Diffraction Structure of a Three-Membered Bromium Ion (Brown)
Responsible Care: A New Ethic for the Chemical Industry (CCPA)
Microwave-Assisted Chemistry (Laurentian University / Queen’s University)
The Emergence of Density-Functional Theory as a Computational Tool in Chemistry (Becke and Ziegler)
NRCVAX Crystal Structure Analysis System (NRC)
The Discovery of 3TC and the Growth of BioChem Pharma (Belleau)
Directed Ortho Metalation Reaction: A Powerful Industrial Synthetic Technology (Snieckus)
On Line Oil Sands Analysis by Near Infra Red

1970s

Discovery of Cyanopolyacetylene in the Interstellar Medium (Kroto and McLeod)
Stable Isotope Tracing of Pollutant Sulphur (Krouse)
Atoms in Molecules – A Quantum Theory (Bader)
Mass Spectroscopy of Canola Oil (Craig and Downey)
Fourier Transfer Ion Cyclotron Resonance Spectroscopy (Comisarow and Marshall)
The Fractional Calculus of Keith B. Oldham
The Discovery of Anthroquinone Pulping (Holton)
Fingerprint Detection with Lasers (Duff and Menzel)
The Discovery of the Trisulfur Trinitrade Anion S3N3- (Bojes and Chivers)
Aerobic Methylation of Arsenic by Microorganisms (Cullen)
The Development of Site-Directed Mutagenesis (Smith)
Organic Synthesis for Medicinal Chemistry and the “Chiron” Approach (Hanessian)

1960s

Quantifying Free Radical Chemistry (Ingold)
Role of Passive Oxide Films in Governing Corrosion Processes (Cohen)
Homogenous Catalysis Based on Ruthenium and Rhodium Chemistry (James)
Xenon Hexafluoroplatinate(V) Xe+[PtF6]- The Discovery of Noble Gas Reactivity (Bartlett)
Temperature Programmed Desorption: A Fundamental Tool in Catalysis (Amenomiya, Cvetanovic)
Discovery of the First Dinitrogen Complex (Allen and Senoff)
Theory of Higher-Order Effects In Vibration-Rotation Spectra of Semi-Rigid Molecules (Watson)
Photodegradable Plastics (Guillet)
The Discovery of the Agricultural Fungicide “Carbathiin” (Kulka)
Canada's Brimstone Milestone

1950s

Pioneering Work in Alkaloid Chemistry (Manske)
Ammonia Pressure Leaching Process for Nickel (Forward et al; Sherritt Gordon)
University Research in Chemistry in the 1950s (Lemieux, McDowell, Gunning)
Spectra of Various Gas-Phase Polyatomic Free Radicals (Herzberg)
Mass Spectrometry of Free Radicals (Lossing)
Radioactive Tracers in the Study of Natural Product Biosynthesis (Marion)
The Anomeric (Edward–Lemieux) Effect
The Synthesis of Complex Porphyrins (MacDonald)
Gaseous Action Dynamics Studied by Infra-Red Chemiluminescence (Polanyi)
High Resolution Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (Pople, Schneider and Bernstein)
Superacids in Main-Group Chemistry, and the VSEPR Model of Molecular Structure (Gillespie)
Total Syntheses of Diterpene Alkaloids (Wiesner)
The Synthesis of Coenzyme A (Moffatt, Khorana)
Kinetic Isotope Effect Applications to Reaction Mechanisms (Bourns)

1940s

RDX: A High Explosive for World War II
The Pidgeon Process in Magnesium Production
Polymer Corporation Synthetic Rubber Plant, Sarnia 1942-3 (Whitby and Rowzee)
Mass Spectrometer Investigations of Isotopes Produced in Nuclear Fission (Thode)
Manufacture of Chlorine Dioxide for Bleaching Pulp (Rapson)
Post-War Research on Radioisotope Applications (Spinks)
E. W. R. Steacie and the NRC Post-Doctoral Fellowship Program
Stable Isotope Geochemistry (Thode)

1930s

Vanillin from Pulp Mill Waste (Tomlinson)
Development of Fractionating Columns and More (Stedman)
Processing with Finely Divided Solids: Suspensoid Cracking (Stratford, Imperial Oil)
Herzberg Monographs on Molecular Spectroscopy

1920s

Solving the Prairie Concrete Problem (Thorvaldson)
Clarification of Kraft Green Liquor: Bathurst Pulp Mill, 1920s (Bates)
Vinyl Resins at Shawinigan (Skirrow, Morrison, Blaikie)
Hot Water Separation Process For the Athabasca Oil Sands (Clark)
Insulin (Collip)

1910s

The First Commercial Production of TNT in Canada (LeSueur)
The First Canadian Toluene
Acetone for World War I by the Carbide-Acetylene Route (Canadian Electro Products, later Shawinigan Chemicals)

1900s

The Nature of Radioactivity (Rutherford and Soddy)
Innovations in Lead and Zinc Processing by Cominco, 1900-1930

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