In the mid-nineteenth century, European textile dyeing relied overwhelmingly on natural alizarin extracted from the roots of the madder plant (*Rubia tinctorum*). The commercial viability of synthetic alternatives shifted dramatically in 1868 when chemists Carl Graebe and Carl Liebermann synthesized alizarin from anthracene, a hydrocarbon derived from coal tar waste. However, Graebe and Liebermann’s initial laboratory method required expensive bromine reagents, rendering large-scale industrial synthesis financially impractical for textile manufacturers.
To overcome this economic bottleneck, industrial chemist Heinrich Caro, working at the Badische Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik (BASF), devised an alternative chemical route in 1869 using sulfuric acid to sulfonate anthraquinone rather than brominating anthracene. This modification eliminated the need for costly bromine, drastically lowering raw material expenditures. Concurrently, English chemist William Henry Perkin independently discovered the identical sulfonation pathway and filed a patent application in London just one day after BASF filed its patent in Berlin. Rather than engaging in costly transatlantic patent litigation, BASF and Perkin reached a cross-licensing compromise: Perkin retained exclusive manufacturing and distribution rights within the British market, whereas BASF controlled production across continental Europe. Consequently, within a decade of the 1869 sulfonation breakthrough, global cultivation of madder collapsed, marking one of the earliest instances of a synthetic chemical compound completely supplanting an agricultural commodity in international commerce.
According to the passage, Graebe and Liebermann’s initial 1868 method for synthesizing alizarin was commercially unviable primarily because of which of the following factors?
- It relied on chemical reactions that required expensive bromine reagents.Cevap
- BIt depended on anthracene, an organic compound that could not be derived from industrial waste products.
- CIt precipitated immediate transatlantic patent disputes between European chemical manufacturers.
- DIt introduced a sulfonation reaction using sulfuric acid that caused substantial raw material waste.
- EIt required supplementary extracts from madder roots to stabilize the synthetic dye.