ANTOINE-LAURENT DE LAVOISIER: THE CHEMIST WHO IDENTIFIED THE HYDROGEN PROCESS

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Summary

- Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier birth and studies

- Research on oxygen

- Tests on oxygen, water and flammability

- Law of conservation of mass

- Its end in the era of the French Revolution

An Intelligent, Shrewd and Opportunist scientist. "He favored" the discovery of Hydrogen


Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier, French scientist, is recognized as the father of the history of chemistry having issued the first version of the conservation of mass in 1789, also recognized and he cataloged fundamental discoveries such as oxygen and hydrogen.

He studied in depth and, with a scientific approach, the relationship between combustion and lung respiration, through the observation of the behavior of air in these two phenomena .

Being a nobleman, he sat in the major salons of politics and finance and, precisely through his high-level relationships, he managed to get his research financed.

Chemist, botanist, astronomer and mathematician entered the academy of sciences at the age of 25 and in 1775 took care, for the royal administration, of the study and improvement of gunpowder, carrying out studies on saltpetre.

Through these studies he noted the close relationship between the behavior of combustion and oxygen, between oxygen and plant life and the rusting process of the metal, overturning the phlogiston theory in existence at the time.

He also made his own some studies conducted by Henry Cavendish, managing to understand the relationship between flammable air, discovered by the latter and oxygen with the formation of water, also based on the studies of Joseph Priestley, explicitly defining hydrogen.

This characteristic of Lavoisier of using the studies of colleagues, incorporating them in his research and then taking all the credit for himself, seemed to be a constant in his life as a researcher.

He proved the law of conservation of mass by burning sulfur with phosphorus in the air and stating that the weight of the result of this combustion was greater than the weight of the individual masses, this process having been influenced by air.

He also cataloged, in a scientific way through precise nomenclature, the chemicals that were known at the time, creating a scientific literary basis of the highest importance.

In 1769 he was called by the monarchical administration, as a mathematician, to reform the tax and tax collection system, helping the offices in charge to reform the measurement system metric for all of France.

In 1793, following the political events following the French Revolution, he was arrested along with the people who had dealt with the collection of taxes on behalf of the monarchy for high treason .

In vain he tried to prove that his role was only that of a technical consultant and that nothing had to do with the direct work linked to the collection action, but he was not believed and on May 8, 1794 the revolutionary court sentenced him to death by guillotine.

Automatic translation. We apologize for any inaccuracies. Original article in Italian.


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