Armand Jean François Séguin or Segouin (21 March 1767 – 24 January 1835) was a French chemist and physiologist who discovered a faster and cheaper process for tanning leather.
From 1789 he was involved in several important areas of scientific research: the composition of water, the physiology of respiration and perspiration, and in determining techniques for the fusion and analysis of platinum.
James Hall the Scottish geologist records visiting Lavoisier in Paris in 1791: Went with M. Seguin to Jannetti rue de l’arbre sec.
Yet in this state it will answer many purposes.Seguin and Lavoisier attempted to solve the problem of purification and approached Josiah Wedgwood for an advice on suitable refractory, he was unable to help and passed on the request to Joseph Priestley who said he considered magnesia to be the most likely substance to withstand such intense heats.
Previous to the experiments of Seguin, the process of tanning was an operation of much time and trouble, even years were necessary to bring the hide to a state of leather.
The revolution this chemist has brought about in this art enables the tanner to complete his formerly arduous process in the short space of a few days, whilst the leather is superior in quality to that made after the old method.Seguin built a tanning factory on the Île de Sèvres, granted to him by the Republic, and later known as the Île Seguin in the Seine at Boulogne-Billancourt, near Paris.
In Paris Séguin's house in the rue d’Anjou adjoined that of Jacques Collard (1758-1838) the grandfather of Marie-Fortunée Lafarge and she recounts her memories of him and his children.
[3] M. Séguin was a very obscure, and very poor chemist, when he discovered, at the moment when the Republic needed equipments for its army, the method of tanning leather ...