Armand Seguin

Armand Jean François Séguin or Segouin (21 March 1767 – 24 January 1835) was a French chemist and physiologist who discovered a faster and cheaper process for tanning leather. As a result, he became immensely rich through the supply of leather to Napoleon's armies. He was born on March 21, 1767 in Paris and died on January 23, 1835.

From 1789 he was involved in several important areas of scientific research: the composition the water, the physiology of respiration and perspiration, and in determining techniques for the fusion and analysis of platinum.

Armand Seguin was a collaborator and human guinea pig with Antoine Lavoisier in his experiments on animal respiration.

Lavoisier had an interest in the purification of platinum and its use in making vessels for use in chemical research. In 1790 presented a paper Observations on Platinum to the Académie des Science with which he showed some examples of the work of Marc Etienne Janety, the Royal Goldsmith to Louis XVI who had found himself left with a large stock of platinum when the French Revolution reduced the demand.

Lavoisier was otherwise occupied and passed the research project to Seguin. James Hall the Scottish geologist records visiting Lavoisier in Paris in 1791:

Went with M. Seguin to Jannetti rue de l’arbre sec. He works in Platina. I bespoke a little spoon for the blow pipe and & cup with some wire of that metal. M. S told me that as prepared the metal does not stand the action of pure caustic alkali when urged by a great heat, for by this means it becomes porous and lets the alkali through by acting as it is supposed upon the arsenic which has not been thoroughly driven off. Yet in this state it will answer many purposes.

Seguin and Lavoisier attempted to solve the problem of purification and approached Josiah Wedgwood for an advice on suitable refractory, he was unable to help and passed on the request to Joseph Priestley who said he considered magnesia to be the most likely substance to withstand such intense heats. In the end their attempt failed and it was left to Jannetty to solve and to sell his stock of platinum.

From 1790 until his death Seguin was associated with the editorial board of the scientific journal Annales de chimie et de physique, which is still published, now named Annales de chimie et de physique. After Lavoisier's execution in 1794 Seguin started a collaboration with Lavoisier's widow, Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, to publish a memoir of her husband. This ended abruptly when, according to Madame Lavoisier, Seguin gave too much importance to his own collaboration with the father of modern chemistry and also refused to publicly condemn the murderers of Lavoisier.

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