August Kekulé

August Kekulé was a German chemist who helped establish structural theory in organic chemistry and proposed a cyclic structure for benzene.

Justus von Liebig: A German chemist who helped establish modern chemical education and advanced organic chemistry. Liebig’s laboratory helped shape the experimental culture in which Kekulé trained.
Structural theory of chemistry: The theory that a molecule’s properties depend on the identities and bonding arrangements of its atoms. Kekulé helped make atom-to-atom arrangement a foundation of organic chemistry.
Valence (chemistry): An atom’s combining capacity, commonly represented by the number of bonds it forms. Changing ideas about valence made Kekulé’s structural proposals possible.
IUPAC nomenclature of organic chemistry: The standardized system for naming organic compounds according to their structures. Structural formulas made consistent naming of increasingly complex organic molecules practical.
Hermann Kolbe: A German chemist known for synthesizing organic compounds from inorganic substances and defending structural theories. Kolbe’s work formed part of the debate over how atoms were arranged in organic compounds.
Carbon tetravalence: The chemical principle that carbon typically forms four covalent bonds. Carbon’s four-bond capacity underlies the chains and rings in Kekulé’s formulas.
Organic chemistry: The branch of chemistry concerned chiefly with carbon-containing compounds and their reactions. Kekulé’s work helped turn organic chemistry into a science of molecular structure.
Chemical structure: The arrangement of atoms and bonds that defines a molecule’s organization. Kekulé helped establish molecular structure as an explanation of chemical properties.
Archibald Scott Couper: A Scottish chemist who independently proposed that carbon atoms can bond to one another in chains. Couper published a carbon-bonding theory close to Kekulé’s in 1858.
Covalent bond: A chemical bond formed when atoms share one or more pairs of electrons. Kekulé’s structural formulas represented connections between atoms as bonds.

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