Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge, a German analytical chemist best known for identifying the active ingredient caffeine, is being remembered with a Google Doodle on what would have been his 225th birthday.

Runge, who was born outside of Hamburg, Germany on 8 February 1795, began to show an interest in experimenting when he was just a teenager - which eventually led to a lifetime of achievements in the field.

Google Doodle today honor him by google doodle - visit https://www.google.com/doodles/friedl...

One of Runge’s findings - the dilating effects that extract from the plant belladonna has on pupils - was fascinating enough that it captured the attention of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a well-known writer and polymath from Germany.

Intrigued by what else Runge could do at such a young age, Goethe tasked the chemist with identifying the chemical makeup of coffee beans.

Runge was born as the third child of the pastor Johann Gerhardt Runge. For financial reasons, Runge was initially only able to attend elementary school and from 1810 to 1816 was a apprentice apprentice pharmacist at the Ratsapotheke and the Löwen Pharmacy in Lübeck.

He studied medicine from 1816 to 1822 at the universities of Berlin, Göttingen and Jena, then chemistry at the University of Jena. He received his doctorate in 1819 to Dr. Ing. med. and 1822 in Berlin to the doctor of philosophy with a thesis on the economically significant indigo. In 1826 Runge became a lecturer and in 1828 an associate professor of technology at the University of Wroclaw.

In 1832 he finished his university career and moved to Oranienburg, where he lived until his death, to work in the Chemical Establishment. Hempel, later Chemical Products Factory Oranienburg, to work as an industrial chemist.

Runge is known for his work on the technical utilization of coal tar, which was obtained in large quantities in the coal gas and coke production from hard coal and had to be disposed of as waste. He isolated, characterized and named substances from coal tar, the most important ones being: kyanol (aniline), pyrrole, leucole (quinoline), carbolic acid (phenol), rosin acid (aurin) - basic building blocks for numerous products of the chemical industry from the second half of the 19th century. century.

In 1843, more detailed investigations were carried out by August Wilhelm von Hofmann of Kyanol and Leukol. Auguste Laurent analyzed the elemental composition of carbolic acid. It was found that Kyanols was identical to aniline, which forms according to Carl Julius Fritzsche in the heating of anthranilic acid.

Runge performed various experiments with aniline. When mixed with chloral solution, it assumed a violet color. This reaction is still used today as Runge's chlorinated lime reaction for the detection of aniline. When mixed with oxygen, acids or bases, aniline forms red dyes. With this Runge had first produced tar dyes, which at that time had no economic significance.