In 1827 he became an assistant to Gay-Lussac and Joseph-Louis Lassaigne (1800-1859); the latter became famous in connection with the sodium fusion test for the elements.
After some time at his laboratory Gay-Lussac proposed Pelouze for a teaching post at Lille where the town council had established a chemistry course to be given by Frédéric Kuhlmann.
He was elected to the Académie des Sciences (1837); he taught and was professor of chemistry at the École Polytechnique (1831–1846) and at the Collège de France (1831–1850).
Pelouze had many students but probably the most famous was Claude Bernard. He also opened his laboratory to the young Marcelin Berthelot who was soon to collaborate in a study of chemical equilibrium with another of Pelouze’s students, Péan de Saint-Gilles.
Pelouze taught chemistry to Alfred Nobel, who used his knowledge of chemical explosives to accumulate the fortune that endows annual prizes in science and literature given in his name.
He was an outstanding analytical and experimental chemist. His early investigations included studies of salicin (1830), with Jules Gay-Lussac; sugar beet (1831); fermentation (1831), with Frédéric Kuhlmann; conversion of hydrocyanic acid into formic acid; and decomposition of ammonium formate into hydrocyanic acid and water.
Pelouze published several books: Cours de chimie générale, Notions générales de chimie, Abrégé de chimie, Traité de chimie générale
Théophile-Jules Pelouze (1807-1867)
