Charles-Adolphe Wurtz

Adolphe Wurtz (26 November 1817 – 10 May 1884) is an Alsatian French chemist.

He is best remembered for his decades-long advocacy for the atomic theory and for ideas about the structures of chemical compounds, against the skeptical opinions of chemists such as Marcellin Berthelot and Etienne Henri Sainte-Claire Deville.

He is well known by organic chemists for the Wurtz reaction, to form carbon-carbon bonds by reacting alkyl halides with sodium, and for his discoveries of ethylamine, ethylene glycol, and the aldol reaction.

Wurtz is also an influential writer and educator.