Eric Rideal

Sir Eric Keightley Rideal, MBE, FRS (11 April 1890 – 25 September 1974) was an English physical chemist. He worked on a wide range of subjects, including electrochemistry, chemical kinetics, catalysis, electrophoresis, colloids and surface chemistry. He is best known for the Eley–Rideal mechanism, which he proposed in 1938 with Daniel D. Eley. He is also known for the textbook that he authored, An Introduction to Surface Chemistry (1926), and was awarded honours for the research he carried out during both World Wars and for his services to chemistry.

Eric Keightley Rideal was born on 11 April 1890 in Sydenham, which at that time was part of the county of Kent. His father was the chemist Samuel Rideal, whose work on water purification and disinfection included the Rideal–Walker test. His mother was Elizabeth Keightley, daughter of Samuel Keightley. Rideal was educated at Farnham Grammar School, Surrey, and then at Oundle School, Northamptonshire. In 1907 he won a scholarship in Natural Sciences to Trinity Hall, Cambridge. After he graduated in 1910 he continued his studies in Germany, obtaining his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1912 at the University of Bonn under Richard Anschütz.

When World War I broke out, Rideal was working on water supplies in Ecuador, an assignment that had come to him through his father. He returned home and enlisted with the Artists Rifles, eventually serving on the Western Front at the Somme in 1916 with the Royal Engineers. He was invalided home the same year after an outbreak of dysentery, and spent the rest of the war carrying out research in catalysis at University College London under Frederick G. Donnan. During this period he also worked with Hugh Stott Taylor, co-authoring Catalysis in Theory and Practice (1919), described as a "seminal" work in the field. Rideal was made MBE in 1918 for his war work.

...
Wikipedia