Henri Moissan
Encyclopedia
Ferdinand Frederick Henri Moissan (September 28, 1852 – February 20, 1907) was a French
chemist
who won the 1906 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
for his work in isolating fluorine
from its compounds.
, where he attended the local school. In 1870 he left the school without the "grade universitaire" necessary to attend the university. He started working at a chemist in Paris where he was able to save a person intoxicated with arsenic
. He decided to study chemistry and started first at the laboratory of Edmond Frémy
and later at that of Pierre Paul Dehérain
. Dehérain argued him into an academic career. The baccalauréat
which was necessary to study at the university Moissan obtained in 1874 after a failed attempt. During his time in Paris he became friend of the chemist Alexandre Léon Étard and botanist Vasque.
He published his first scientific paper about the carbon dioxide
and oxygen
metabolism in plants with Dehérain in 1874. He left plant physiology and turned towards inorganic chemistry and his research on pyrophoric iron was well received by the two most prominent French inorganic chemists of that time, Henri Etienne Sainte-Claire Deville
and Debray. Afer Moissan received his Ph.D. in 1880, his friend Landrine offered him a position at an analytic laboratory. His marriage to Léonie Lugan took place in 1882. They had a son in 1885. During the 1880s Moissan was focused on fluorine chemistry and especially the production of fluorine itself. He had no laboratory of his own, but used several laboratories, for example that of Charles Friedel
. There he had access to a strong battery consisting of 90 Bunsen cell
s which made it possible to observe a gas produced by the electrolysis of molten arsenic trichloride
; the gas was reabsorbed by the arsenic trichloride. The electrolysis of hydrogen fluoride
yielded fluorine
on June 26, 1886. The French academy of science sent three representatives, Marcellin Berthelot
, Henri Debray and Edmond Frémy
, to prove the results. Moissan was unable to reproduce his results, due to the fact that the hydrogen fluoride did not contain any traces of potassium fluoride, as in the previous experiment. After resolving the problem and demonstrating the production of fluorine several times, he was awarded a prize of 10,000 francs. The following years till 1891 he focused on the research of fluorine chemistry. He discovered numerous fluorine compounds, for example together with Paul Lebeau SF6
in 1901. His research in the production of boron
and artificial diamond
s and the development of an electrically heated oven which was capable to reach 3500°C using 2200 Ampere at 80 Volt followed until 1900.
His newly developed arc furnace opened the road to obtain boride
s and carbide
s of numerous elements (e.g. silicon boride
), which was another research area of Moissan.
had been well known for many years, but all attempts to isolate it had failed – and some experimenters had died in the attempt.
Moissan eventually succeeded in preparing fluorine in 1886 by the electrolysis
of a solution
of potassium hydrogen difluoride (KHF2) in liquid hydrogen fluoride
(HF). The mixture was needed because hydrogen fluoride is a non-conductor. The device was built with platinum
/iridium
electrodes in a platinum holder and the apparatus was cooled to −50 °C. The result was to completely isolate the hydrogen produced from the negative electrode
from the fluorine produced at the positive one. This is essentially still the way fluorine is produced today. For this achievement, he was awarded the Nobel Prize
in 1906.
and attempted to use pressure to synthesize diamond
s from the more common form of carbon
. In 1893, Moissan began studying fragments of a meteorite found in Meteor Crater
near Diablo Canyon
in Arizona
. In these fragments he discovered minute quantities of a new mineral and, after extensive research, Moissan concluded that this mineral was made of silicon carbide
. In 1905, this mineral was named Moissanite
, in his honor.
in February 1907, shortly after his return from receiving the Nobel Prize in Stockholm
. His death was attributed to an acute appendicitis
. It is not known whether his experiments with fluorine contributed to his early death like others in his area of study.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
who won the 1906 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature,...
for his work in isolating fluorine
Fluorine
Fluorine is the chemical element with atomic number 9, represented by the symbol F. It is the lightest element of the halogen column of the periodic table and has a single stable isotope, fluorine-19. At standard pressure and temperature, fluorine is a pale yellow gas composed of diatomic...
from its compounds.
Biography
The family Moissan originated from Toulouse and moved to Paris, where Moissan was born September 28, 1852, the son of a lesser officer of the eastern railway company and a seamstress. In 1864 they moved to MeauxMeaux
Meaux is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in the metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located east-northeast from the center of Paris. Meaux is a sub-prefecture of the department and the seat of an arondissement...
, where he attended the local school. In 1870 he left the school without the "grade universitaire" necessary to attend the university. He started working at a chemist in Paris where he was able to save a person intoxicated with arsenic
Arsenic
Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As, atomic number 33 and relative atomic mass 74.92. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in conjunction with sulfur and metals, and also as a pure elemental crystal. It was first documented by Albertus Magnus in 1250.Arsenic is a metalloid...
. He decided to study chemistry and started first at the laboratory of Edmond Frémy
Edmond Fremy
Edmond Frémy was a French chemist. He is perhaps best known today for Frémy's salt, a strong oxidizing agent which he discovered in 1845...
and later at that of Pierre Paul Dehérain
Pierre Paul Dehérain
Pierre Paul Dehérain is notably the doctoral advisor of the Nobel Prize winner Henri Moissan.Dehérain was a plant physiologist and studied the absorption of carbon dioxide by plants and the effect of artificial light, especially ultra violet rays, on plants...
. Dehérain argued him into an academic career. The baccalauréat
Baccalauréat
The baccalauréat , often known in France colloquially as le bac, is an academic qualification which French and international students take at the end of the lycée . It was introduced by Napoleon I in 1808. It is the main diploma required to pursue university studies...
which was necessary to study at the university Moissan obtained in 1874 after a failed attempt. During his time in Paris he became friend of the chemist Alexandre Léon Étard and botanist Vasque.
He published his first scientific paper about the carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
and oxygen
Oxygen
Oxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...
metabolism in plants with Dehérain in 1874. He left plant physiology and turned towards inorganic chemistry and his research on pyrophoric iron was well received by the two most prominent French inorganic chemists of that time, Henri Etienne Sainte-Claire Deville
Henri Etienne Sainte-Claire Deville
Henri Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville was a French chemist.He was born in the island of St Thomas, West Indies, where his father was French consul. Together with his elder brother Charles he was educated in Paris at the College Rollin...
and Debray. Afer Moissan received his Ph.D. in 1880, his friend Landrine offered him a position at an analytic laboratory. His marriage to Léonie Lugan took place in 1882. They had a son in 1885. During the 1880s Moissan was focused on fluorine chemistry and especially the production of fluorine itself. He had no laboratory of his own, but used several laboratories, for example that of Charles Friedel
Charles Friedel
Charles Friedel was a French chemist and mineralogist. A native of Strasbourg, France, he was a student of Louis Pasteur at the Sorbonne...
. There he had access to a strong battery consisting of 90 Bunsen cell
Bunsen cell
The Bunsen cell is a zinc-carbon primary cell composed of a zinc anode in dilute sulfuric acid separated by a porous pot from a carbon cathode in nitric or chromic acid.- Cell details :...
s which made it possible to observe a gas produced by the electrolysis of molten arsenic trichloride
Arsenic trichloride
Arsenic trichloride is an inorganic compound with the formula AsCl3, also known as arsenous chloride or butter of arsenic. This poisonous oil is colourless, although impure samples may appear yellow. It is an intermediate in the manufacture of organoarsenic compounds.-Structure:AsCl3 is a...
; the gas was reabsorbed by the arsenic trichloride. The electrolysis of hydrogen fluoride
Hydrogen fluoride
Hydrogen fluoride is a chemical compound with the formula HF. This colorless gas is the principal industrial source of fluorine, often in the aqueous form as hydrofluoric acid, and thus is the precursor to many important compounds including pharmaceuticals and polymers . HF is widely used in the...
yielded fluorine
Fluorine
Fluorine is the chemical element with atomic number 9, represented by the symbol F. It is the lightest element of the halogen column of the periodic table and has a single stable isotope, fluorine-19. At standard pressure and temperature, fluorine is a pale yellow gas composed of diatomic...
on June 26, 1886. The French academy of science sent three representatives, Marcellin Berthelot
Marcellin Berthelot
Marcelin Pierre Eugène Berthelot was a French chemist and politician noted for the Thomsen-Berthelot principle of thermochemistry. He synthesized many organic compounds from inorganic substances and disproved the theory of vitalism. He is considered as one of the greatest chemists of all time.He...
, Henri Debray and Edmond Frémy
Edmond Fremy
Edmond Frémy was a French chemist. He is perhaps best known today for Frémy's salt, a strong oxidizing agent which he discovered in 1845...
, to prove the results. Moissan was unable to reproduce his results, due to the fact that the hydrogen fluoride did not contain any traces of potassium fluoride, as in the previous experiment. After resolving the problem and demonstrating the production of fluorine several times, he was awarded a prize of 10,000 francs. The following years till 1891 he focused on the research of fluorine chemistry. He discovered numerous fluorine compounds, for example together with Paul Lebeau SF6
Sulfur hexafluoride
Sulfur hexafluoride is an inorganic, colorless, odorless, and non-flammable greenhouse gas. has an octahedral geometry, consisting of six fluorine atoms attached to a central sulfur atom. It is a hypervalent molecule. Typical for a nonpolar gas, it is poorly soluble in water but soluble in...
in 1901. His research in the production of boron
Boron
Boron is the chemical element with atomic number 5 and the chemical symbol B. Boron is a metalloid. Because boron is not produced by stellar nucleosynthesis, it is a low-abundance element in both the solar system and the Earth's crust. However, boron is concentrated on Earth by the...
and artificial diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...
s and the development of an electrically heated oven which was capable to reach 3500°C using 2200 Ampere at 80 Volt followed until 1900.
His newly developed arc furnace opened the road to obtain boride
Boride
In chemistry a boride is a chemical compound between boron and a less electronegative element, for example silicon boride . The borides are a very large group of compounds that are generally high melting and are not ionic in nature. Some borides exhibit very useful physical properties. The term...
s and carbide
Carbide
In chemistry, a carbide is a compound composed of carbon and a less electronegative element. Carbides can be generally classified by chemical bonding type as follows: salt-like, covalent compounds, interstitial compounds, and "intermediate" transition metal carbides...
s of numerous elements (e.g. silicon boride
Silicon boride
Silicon borides are lightweight ceramic compounds formed between silicon and boron. Several stoichiometric silicon boride compounds, SiBn, have been reported: silicon triboride, SiB3, silicon tetraboride, SiB4, silicon hexaboride, SiB6, as well as SiBn...
), which was another research area of Moissan.
Preparation of elemental fluorine
The existence of the element fluorineFluorine
Fluorine is the chemical element with atomic number 9, represented by the symbol F. It is the lightest element of the halogen column of the periodic table and has a single stable isotope, fluorine-19. At standard pressure and temperature, fluorine is a pale yellow gas composed of diatomic...
had been well known for many years, but all attempts to isolate it had failed – and some experimenters had died in the attempt.
Moissan eventually succeeded in preparing fluorine in 1886 by the electrolysis
Electrolysis
In chemistry and manufacturing, electrolysis is a method of using a direct electric current to drive an otherwise non-spontaneous chemical reaction...
of a solution
Solution
In chemistry, a solution is a homogeneous mixture composed of only one phase. In such a mixture, a solute is dissolved in another substance, known as a solvent. The solvent does the dissolving.- Types of solutions :...
of potassium hydrogen difluoride (KHF2) in liquid hydrogen fluoride
Hydrogen fluoride
Hydrogen fluoride is a chemical compound with the formula HF. This colorless gas is the principal industrial source of fluorine, often in the aqueous form as hydrofluoric acid, and thus is the precursor to many important compounds including pharmaceuticals and polymers . HF is widely used in the...
(HF). The mixture was needed because hydrogen fluoride is a non-conductor. The device was built with platinum
Platinum
Platinum is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Pt and an atomic number of 78. Its name is derived from the Spanish term platina del Pinto, which is literally translated into "little silver of the Pinto River." It is a dense, malleable, ductile, precious, gray-white transition metal...
/iridium
Iridium
Iridium is the chemical element with atomic number 77, and is represented by the symbol Ir. A very hard, brittle, silvery-white transition metal of the platinum family, iridium is the second-densest element and is the most corrosion-resistant metal, even at temperatures as high as 2000 °C...
electrodes in a platinum holder and the apparatus was cooled to −50 °C. The result was to completely isolate the hydrogen produced from the negative electrode
Electrode
An electrode is an electrical conductor used to make contact with a nonmetallic part of a circuit...
from the fluorine produced at the positive one. This is essentially still the way fluorine is produced today. For this achievement, he was awarded the Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
in 1906.
Further studies
Moissan went on to study fluorine chemistry in great detail, contributed to the development of the electric arc furnaceElectric arc furnace
An electric arc furnace is a furnace that heats charged material by means of an electric arc.Arc furnaces range in size from small units of approximately one ton capacity up to about 400 ton units used for secondary steelmaking...
and attempted to use pressure to synthesize diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...
s from the more common form of carbon
Carbon
Carbon is the chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds...
. In 1893, Moissan began studying fragments of a meteorite found in Meteor Crater
Meteor Crater
Meteor Crater is a meteorite impact crater located approximately east of Flagstaff, near Winslow in the northern Arizona desert of the United States. Because the US Department of the Interior Division of Names commonly recognizes names of natural features derived from the nearest post office, the...
near Diablo Canyon
Canyon Diablo (canyon)
Canyon Diablo is a canyon north of Two Guns in Northern Arizona. It is located in the Navajo Indian Reservation.The canyon passes three miles west of Meteor Crater. The community of Canyon Diablo, Arizona on the edge of the canyon about 12 miles northwest of the crater was the closest community...
in Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
. In these fragments he discovered minute quantities of a new mineral and, after extensive research, Moissan concluded that this mineral was made of silicon carbide
Silicon carbide
Silicon carbide , also known as carborundum, is a compound of silicon and carbon with chemical formula SiC. It occurs in nature as the extremely rare mineral moissanite. Silicon carbide powder has been mass-produced since 1893 for use as an abrasive...
. In 1905, this mineral was named Moissanite
Moissanite
Moissanite originally referred to a rare mineral discovered by Henri Moissan having a chemical formula SiC and various crystalline polymorphs. Earlier, this material had been synthesized in the laboratory and named silicon carbide .- Background :...
, in his honor.
Death
He died suddenly in ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in February 1907, shortly after his return from receiving the Nobel Prize in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
. His death was attributed to an acute appendicitis
Appendicitis
Appendicitis is a condition characterized by inflammation of the appendix. It is classified as a medical emergency and many cases require removal of the inflamed appendix, either by laparotomy or laparoscopy. Untreated, mortality is high, mainly because of the risk of rupture leading to...
. It is not known whether his experiments with fluorine contributed to his early death like others in his area of study.
External links
- Biography Biography from Nobelprize.org website
- Scientific genealogy
- Biography