Curated category
Reducing agents
- EuropiumIn the year 1896, French chemist Eugène-Anatole Demarçay examined spectral lines from samarium-gadolinium concentrates. He noticed faint lines that did not…
- DysprosiumIn 1886, French chemist Paul Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran worked in Paris to separate dysprosium oxide from holmium oxide.
- ZincZinc carries the symbol Zn and holds atomic number 30 on the periodic table. It sits as the first element in group 12, also known as IIB.
- CeriumIn 1803, Jöns Jakob Berzelius and Wilhelm Hisinger stood in a laboratory in Bastnäs, Sweden. They had just isolated a new substance from the heavy gangue…
- PotassiumIn 1807, Humphry Davy isolated a new metal from potash using a newly invented voltaic pile. He derived the element by electrolysis of molten caustic potash.
- TerbiumSwedish chemist Carl Gustaf Mosander detected terbium as an impurity in yttrium oxide during 1843. He separated yttria into three fractions named yttria…
- AluminiumThe stable isotope 27Al comprises virtually all naturally occurring aluminium. This single isotope makes the element mononuclidic for standard atomic weight…
- LanthanumIn 1839, the Swedish chemist Carl Gustaf Mosander examined a sample of cerium nitrate. He roasted it in air and treated the resulting oxide with dilute…
- PraseodymiumPraseodymium gets its name from two Ancient Greek words: prasinos, meaning 'leek-green', and didymos, meaning 'twin'. The leek-green half describes its salts.
- ManganeseManganese carries the atomic number 25 and exists as a hard, brittle, silvery metal. Its most common form is the stable isotope known as 55Mn.
- HydrogenHydrogen carries the symbol H and the atomic number 1, the very first entry in the catalogue of the elements. It is the lightest of them all, and the most…
- BerylliumIn 1798, a paper read before the Institut de France announced that chemist Louis-Nicolas Vauquelin had found a new earth by dissolving aluminum hydroxide…
- BariumAlchemists in the early Middle Ages found smooth pebble-like stones of mineral baryte near Bologna, Italy. These stones were called Bologna stones because…
- ErbiumCarl Gustaf Mosander stood in a laboratory in 1843 holding a sample of gadolinite from Ytterby, Sweden. He believed the mineral contained only one metal…
- NeodymiumIn 1885, the Austrian chemist Carl Auer von Welsbach stood in a laboratory in Vienna and separated a complex mixture of rare-earth elements.
- GadoliniumIn 1880, Swiss chemist Jean Charles de Marignac observed distinct spectroscopic lines in samples of gadolinite. He detected the oxide of a new element using…
- CalciumCalcium is a chemical element with the symbol Ca and atomic number 20. It stands as an alkaline earth metal that forms a dark oxide-nitride layer when…
- MagnesiumAging stars forge magnesium by adding three helium nuclei to a carbon nucleus. When these massive stars explode as supernovas, they eject the element into…
- SamariumIn 1879, French chemist Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran isolated a new element from the mineral samarskite in Paris. He identified this substance through…
- CarbonCarbon is the sixth element, with a ground-state electron configuration of 1s22s22p2. Its four outer electrons are valence electrons that allow it to form up…