- Sometimes things don't work out the way chemists planned.chemistry image by david hughes from Fotolia.com
The 20th century was full of chemical inventions that either helped or hindered mankind. In fact, many of these inventions have both humanitarian and destructive uses. Several chemical inventions made famous during wars were all originally invented by chemists trying to solve problems like world hunger. - Zyklon B is hydrogen cyanide in a solid support. This chemical compound was invented by German Jewish chemist Fritz Haber in 1920 for pest control purposes. Zyklon B combined hydrocyanic acid, which is highly toxic, with a sweet-smelling, volatile but nontoxic irritant absorbed in a porous powder. Zyklon B was initially used to delouse people and fumigate buildings. It is most famous, though, for its use in the concentration camp gas chambers. Zyklon B was used to murder millions of innocent people, mostly Jews. While Haber never realized that his invention would one day be used to execute his own family members, he is widely recognized as the father of chemical warfare. He also invented mustard gas, a development which provoked the suicide of Haber's own wife, chemist Clara Immerwahr.
- Agent Orange was invented in 1943 at the University of Illinois by a graduate student in chemistry named Arthur Galston. Galston was trying to find a way to make soybeans grow faster so they could feed more people and discovered that a mild spray with 2,3,5-trirodobenzoic acid would make them grow so fast that they could be planted in a short season. A stronger dose caused plants to release a chemical that defoliated them. This invention was appropriated by the United States military and used to defoliate the jungles of Vietnam despite Galston's warnings that the manufacture of Agent Orange released toxic dioxins. Agent Orange eventually caused the death and disability of nearly half a million Vietnamese people and American veterans and the same number of birth defects.
- Sarin gas was invented in 1938 by German chemist Gerhard Schrader. Schrader specialized in the invention of new insecticides and made it his mission to fight world hunger. Unfortunately, these pursuits led him to accidentally discover sarin and tabun, two of the most dangerous and toxic chemicals known to man. Sarin is approximately 500 times more deadly than cyanide. These gases are used in chemical warfare. Both are colorless and odorless and spread quickly through the air. Sarin and tabun are nerve agents and have been used by the Iraqis against the Kurds as well as by the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult in Tokyo.
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