Alizarin is an organic compound that has been in use as red dye, particularly for textiles. It’s traditionally derived from the roots of plants of the madder genus.
German chemists, Carl Graebe and Carl Lieberman working for the chemical company BASF found a way to synthesise alizarin in 1868. They demonstrated that the compound could be made from a chemical called anthracene, extracted from coal tar. This mode of production was cheaper as well. Simultaneously, the English dye chemist William Henry Perkin had independently discovered the same synthesis. However, the BASF group filed their patent one day before Perkin.
As one of the few red dyes available at that time, production of natural alizarin provided livelihood to thousands of people until it began to be synthetically produced. Synthetic alizarin was produced commercially at a fraction of the cost of the natural dye. The use of alizarin has decreased over the years.
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