The pH scale was invented by the Carlsberg brewery.

The pH scale was invented by the Carlsberg brewery.

Nearly 110 years ago, while running experiments with beer at the world-renowned Carlsberg research lab in Copenhagen, Danish chemist Søren Peter Lauritz Sørensen developed the simple yet enduring pH scale, which measures whether a substance is acidic or basic.

Søren Sørensen

Such was the case with the concept of pH, introduced in 1909 by Søren Sørensen as a convenient way of expressing acidity—the negative logarithm of hydrogen ion concentration.

And exactly 100 years ago, Søren Sørensen, Carlsberg's director of chemistry, devised a vital diagnostic tool for measuring acidity, thus advancing the detection of digestive, respiratory and metabolic disorders. Sørensen's invention was the pH scale.