Genoa Chemistry Museum

A first nucleus of the Chemistry Museum can be considered to be made up of different material (instruments, collections of books, documents, etc.) which, over the years, has accumulated in the rooms subsequently destined for the Institute of General Chemistry, initially in via Balbi and then in viale Benedetto XV, 3.

Genoa Chemistry Museum
Genoa Chemistry Museum

The book collections, including several milestone texts in the evolution of chemical disciplines, have generally been transferred to the antiquarian section of the Library attached to the current Department of Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry (Chemistry Library Services Center "S. Cannizzaro" ”).

A significant amount of material acquired over more than 150 years consists of instruments, glassware, and ete. intended for both research and teaching. Interesting are, for example, several small devices used to illustrate, in lessons, from the desk, the carrying out of some crucial experiments, such as the devices used, according to Lavoisier, for the analysis of air, and respectively of water, or for the measure in the gaseous state of the density of a substance, and therefore of its molecular weight.

At the beginning of the 90s, being Director of the Institute of General Chemistry the prof. Riccardo Ferro, the restoration, recovery and reorganization of this material have begun. This work was mainly carried out by Prof. G. Rambaldi, with the help of the technician Mr. A. Mori. In a booklet, published in 1996 by the same Prof. Rambaldi (Chemistry Instruments: a XNUMXth century laboratory) describes the result of this restoration conducted on a first large group of instruments and the consequent cataloging in a ""Collection of chemical instruments"".

This work was also made possible following a generous contribution from the Region Liguria which through its Offices and its competent staff also suggested the creation of a permanent structure (a "Museum") for the conservation of the collections and, together with the Academic Authorities, hoped for its transformation into a Laboratory Museum, i.e. into a Museum where the instruments can be arranged, connected to each other, based on their functionality and possibly made capable of functioning. This transformation was formalized with the official establishment of the Chemistry Museum by the Department of Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry with a resolution of December 1999.

Among the material of different nature existing in the Institute of General Chemistry and currently being arranged at the Museum, two groups of instruments may be worthy of particular attention. A first group dates back to the period of Cannizzaro's presence and is made up of different glassware, small instruments and some analytical balances. It is interesting to think that by using this equipment some of the fundamental foundations of the atomic theory of matter and of chemistry more generally were laid.

Another group of tools, which we are happy to highlight, dates back to the 30s and includes equipment used for processing minerals and rare earth element metals. Interest was directed towards the identification, separation and preparation of the individual elements of this family.

Large quantities of minerals and oxides were processed and some of the pure metals lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium and later samarium) were produced in quantities of the order of a kilogram. At the same time (with Professors Rolla, Mazza, Iandelli) the foundations were laid for a series of lines of research (alloy chemistry, crystal chemistry, magnetochemistry, thermochemistry) which developed in the following decades and to which some of the thematic characteristics of research currently pursued in various sections of the Department.

The equipment used at the time, comparable to small pilot plants, included numerous large capsules (up to 50 liters of capacity), and related cookers, for dissolution, decantation, crystallization, precipitation, vacuum filters, current heating systems of gaseous HCl (for the preparation of anhydrous chlorides), plants for electrolysis in the molten state (converter, melting furnaces, etc.).

This preparatory equipment was accompanied by analytical instrumentation which was also quite exceptional for the time, including several visible and UV spectrographs and some of the first commercial X-ray instruments (high voltage transformers, closed and open generator tubes and related high vacuum instrumentation , spectrographs, diffractometry cameras). This set of instruments is currently only partially restored also due to the large space that would be necessary for its functional display.

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