Rediscovery of petrochemical rice ethylene

Rediscovery of petrochemical rice ethylene

Ethylene is a plant hormone that ripens apples or bananas © Pixabay

The usefulness of ethylene is known with the development of organic chemistry. At first, it was just a gaseous hormone that made plants such as bananas, apples, and pears ripen as plant hormones.

The ancient Egyptians deliberately hurt to learn figs quickly. There are also records that Chinese farmers put pears in closed rooms and burned incense to promote ethylene.

The first to discover ethylene gas as a plant hormone was Russian scientist Dmitry Neljubow. In the late 1800s, he thought that peas were affected by the gas from the lights that were then used in the laboratory.

The relationship between plants and ethylene gas began in 1901. In 1934, British scientist Richard Gane gave conclusive evidence that plants biosynthesize and sense ethylene. He succeeded in separating the ethylene produced by apples and proved the first gas plant hormone.

But until the 1960s, many researchers did not recognize ethylene as a plant hormone. In addition, the detection of ethylene was difficult. But the fact that ethylene affects the growth of plants raises another new question.

Arno Luckhardt of the University of Chicago, who studied ethylene and plant development in the 1930s, studied the effects of ethylene on animals and humans. Arno first discovered that ethylene-laden animals sleep without toxic reactions. It was an anesthetic effect.

The anesthetic effect of ethylene was much earlier than in 1849, when Thomas Nunneley, a surgeon in Leeds, England, announced the anesthetic effect of 34 substances.

However, it was only after 1923 that Lockhart and other researchers at the University of Chicago announced that ethylene is more effective and has side effects than the ether or chloroform used at that time.

The patient fell asleep deeply, wakes up quickly after surgery, and has no problem during anesthesia. Ethylene, however, is a high explosion hazard. This quickly replaced other anesthetics since the 1950s.

If ethylene was used as an anesthetic in the past, it is now used as a sterilizing gas for medical devices in another form called ethylene oxide. This is also called ethylene oxide, which is made by oxidizing ethylene with air or oxygen.

Ethylene oxide is used as a sterilizing gas for medical devices because of its sterilizing ability and non-corrosiveness of metals. But at the same time, there are risks. Evidence suggests that ethylene oxide may cause carcinogenesis and leukemia.


Why, then, could ethylene be used so much? The simplicity of the ethylene chemistry makes it possible to synthesize many materials.