Nikolay Zinin

Nikolay Nikolaevich Zinin (Russian: Николай Николаевич Зинин) (25 August 1812, Shusha – 18 February 1880, Saint Petersburg) was a Russian organic chemist.

Life
He studied at the University of Kazan where he graduated in mathematics but he started teaching chemistry in 1835. To improve his skills he was asked to study in Europe for some time, which he did between 1838 and 1841. He studied with Justus Liebig in Giessen, where he finished his research on the benzoin condensation, which was discovered by Liebig several years before. He presented his research results at the University of Saint Petersburg where he received his Ph.D. He became Professor for Chemistry in the same year at the University of Kazan and left for the University of Saint Petersburg in 1847 where also becyme member of St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and first president of Russian Physical and Chemical Society (1868-1877).

In St. Petersburg, professor Zinin was a private teacher of chemistry to the young Alfred Nobel.

Work
He is known for so-called Zinin reaction or Zinin reduction. In which nitro aromates like nitrobenzene are converted to amines by reduction with sodium sulfides. In 1842 Zinin played an important role in identifying aniline.