Ellie Knaggs and tetrahedral carbon
Ellie Knaggs’ claim to be the first to use x-rays to prove carbon’s tetrahedral bonding in molecules has been overlooked, finds Andy Extance
Carbon’s tetrahedral bonding is a central pillar of modern chemistry, yet the first person to ‘see’ it in organic molecules using x-ray crystallography is barely known to many chemists. In 1929, Isabel Ellie Knaggs published her x-ray derived structure of pentaerythritol tetraacetate, correctly interpreting the shape bonds around the atom at its centre took on. But that’s not how history has recorded things.