Eric Keightley Rideal
Rideal, Eric Keightley (1890-1974) was a British physical chemist. He carried out research into surface chemistry, colloids, and the properties and effects of catalysts. A colloid is a material composed of tiny particles of one substance that are dispersed (distributed), but not dissolved, in another substance. A catalyst is a substance that increases the speed of a chemical reaction without being consumed by the reaction. Rideal also devised a method of measuring the germicidal (germ-killing) powers of disinfectants.
Rideal was greatly influenced by William Hardy's approach to biological studies, which became the basis of his own research on surface activity.
Rideal was born in 1890 in London. He was the son of Dr. Samuel Rideal, a chemist. He attended Oundle School and won a scholarship to Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He graduated with first-class honors from Cambridge University in 1910 and earned his doctorate from the University of Bonn, Germany.
He served in the Royal Engineers in France and in 1916 served on the Munitions Inventions Board, which rewarded him with the Member of the Order of the British Empire.
He served as visiting professor of physical chemistry at the University of Illinois, followed by an appointment in 1920 as Humphrey Owen Jones Lecturer in Physical Chemistry at Cambridge. He became the first professor of colloidal science at Cambridge. Rideal worked at Cambridge until 1946 and was rewarded with an honorary fellowship for his service. That year he was appointed director of the Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory and Fullerian Professor at the Royal Institution, where he served until 1949. He served as chair of physical chemistry at King's College in 1950 until his retirement in 1955.
He was knighted in 1951 and died on Sept. 25, 1974.