Charles Friedel (; 12 March 1832 – 20 April 1899) was a French chemist and mineralogist.
Life
A native of Strasbourg, France, Friedel was a student of Louis Pasteur at the Sorbonne. In 1876, he became a professor of chemistry and mineralogy at the Sorbonne. While there he was elected as an honorary member of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society in 1892.
Friedel developed the Friedel-Crafts alkylation and acylation reactions with James Crafts in 1877, and attempted to make synthetic diamonds.
Friedel's wife's father was the engineer, Charles Combes. The Friedel family is a rich lineage of French scientists:
- Georges Friedel (1865–1933), French crystallographer and mineralogist; son of Charles
- (1895–1972), French mining engineer, founder of BRGM, the French geological survey; son of Georges
- Jacques Friedel (1921–2014), French physicist; son of Edmond