Ethyl sulfate, also known as sulfovinic acid, is an organic chemical compound used as intermediate in the production of ethanol from ethylene.
This substance was studied alongside ether
for the first time by German alchemist August Siegmund Frobenius
in 1730, subsequently by French chemists Fourcroy
in 1815. Swedish scientist Nicolas-Théodore de Saussure
also studied it in 1807. Later French pharmacist Polydore Boullay
discovered, sulfuric acid
could produce large amounts of ether and water
via a continuous process. Further studies by German and Swedish chemists Alexander Mitscherlich
and Jöns Berzelius
suggested sulfuric acid was acting as a catalyst
, this eventually led discovery of Sulfovinic acid. The advent of electrochemistry
by Italian physicist Alessandro Volta
and English chemist Humphry Davy
in the 1800s confirmed ether and water were formed by the action of sub-stoichiometric
amounts of sulfuric acid and that sulfovinic acid was formed as an intermediate in the reaction.