Antoine Jérôme Balard (30 September 1802 – 30 April 1876) was a French
chemist
A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe t ...
and one of the discoverers of
bromine
Bromine is a chemical element with the symbol Br and atomic number 35. It is the third-lightest element in group 17 of the periodic table ( halogens) and is a volatile red-brown liquid at room temperature that evaporates readily to form a simi ...
.
Career
Born at
Montpellier, France, on 30 September 1802, he started as an
apothecary
''Apothecary'' () is a mostly archaic term for a medical professional who formulates and dispenses '' materia medica'' (medicine) to physicians, surgeons, and patients. The modern chemist (British English) or pharmacist (British and North Amer ...
, but taking up teaching he acted as chemical assistant at the faculty of sciences of his native town, and then became professor of chemistry at the royal college and school of pharmacy and at the faculty of sciences. In 1826 he discovered in seawater a substance which he recognized as a previously unknown element and named it
bromine
Bromine is a chemical element with the symbol Br and atomic number 35. It is the third-lightest element in group 17 of the periodic table ( halogens) and is a volatile red-brown liquid at room temperature that evaporates readily to form a simi ...
. It had been independently prepared by
Carl Jacob Löwig Carl Jacob Löwig (17 March 1803 – 27 March 1890) was a German chemist and discovered bromine independently of Antoine Jérôme Balard.
He received his PhD at the University of Heidelberg for his work with Leopold Gmelin.
During his research o ...
the previous year and the two are both regarded as having discovered the element.
This achievement brought him the reputation that secured his election as successor to
Louis Jacques Thénard
Louis Jacques Thénard (4 May 177721 June 1857) was a French chemist.
Life
He was born in a farm cottage near Nogent-sur-Seine in the Champagne district
the son of a farm worker. In the post-Revolution French educational system , most boys rec ...
in the chair of chemistry at the faculty of sciences in Paris, and in 1851 he was appointed professor of chemistry at the College de France, where he had
Marcellin Berthelot
Pierre Eugène Marcellin Berthelot (; 25 October 1827 – 18 March 1907) was a French chemist and Republican politician noted for the ThomsenBerthelot principle of thermochemistry. He synthesized many organic compounds from inorganic substa ...
first as pupil, then as assistant and finally as colleague. Balard also had
Louis Pasteur as a pupil when Pasteur was only 26 years old. It was in Balard's laboratory that Pasteur discovered the difference between "right-handed" and "left-handed" crystals while he was working with tartaric acid. Balard died in Paris on 30 April 1876.
While the discovery of bromine and the preparation of many of its compounds was his most conspicuous piece of work, Balard was an industrious chemist on both the pure and applied sides. In his researches on the
bleaching
Bleach is the generic name for any chemical product that is used industrially or domestically to remove color (whitening) from a fabric or fiber or to clean or to remove stains in a process called bleaching. It often refers specifically, to ...
compounds of
chlorine
Chlorine is a chemical element with the symbol Cl and atomic number 17. The second-lightest of the halogens, it appears between fluorine and bromine in the periodic table and its properties are mostly intermediate between them. Chlorine i ...
he was the first to advance the view that bleaching-powder is a double compound of
calcium chloride
Calcium chloride is an inorganic compound, a salt with the chemical formula . It is a white crystalline solid at room temperature, and it is highly soluble in water. It can be created by neutralising hydrochloric acid with calcium hydroxide.
Ca ...
and hypochlorite; and he devoted much time to the problem of economically obtaining
soda
Soda or SODA may refer to:
Chemistry
* Some chemical compounds containing sodium
** Sodium carbonate, washing soda or soda ash
** Sodium bicarbonate, baking soda
** Sodium hydroxide, caustic soda
** Sodium oxide, an alkali metal oxide
* Sod ...
and
potash
Potash () includes various mined and manufactured salts that contain potassium in water-soluble form. from seawater, though here his efforts were nullified by the discovery of the much richer sources of supply afforded by the
Stassfurt deposits. In
organic chemistry
Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain carbon atoms.Clayden, ...
he published papers on the decomposition of ammonium
oxalate
Oxalate (IUPAC: ethanedioate) is an anion with the formula C2O42−. This dianion is colorless. It occurs naturally, including in some foods. It forms a variety of salts, for example sodium oxalate (Na2C2O4), and several esters such as dimethyl ...
, with formation of oxamic acid, on
amyl alcohol
An amyl alcohol is any of eight alcohols with the formula C5H12O. A mixture of amyl alcohols (also called amyl alcohol) can be obtained from fusel alcohol. Amyl alcohol is used as a solvent and in esterification, by which is produced amyl acetate ...
, on the
cyanide
Cyanide is a naturally occurring, rapidly acting, toxic chemical that can exist in many different forms.
In chemistry, a cyanide () is a chemical compound that contains a functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of ...
s, and on the difference in constitution between
ethyl nitrate
Ethyl nitrate is the ethyl ester of nitric acid and has the chemical formula . It is a colourless, volatile, explosive, and highly flammable liquid. It is used in organic synthesis and as an intermediate in the preparation of some drugs, dyes ...
and
ethyl sulfate
Ethyl sulfate (IUPAC name: ethyl hydrogen sulfate), also known as sulfovinic acid, is an organic chemical compound used as an intermediate in the production of ethanol from ethylene. It is the ethyl ester of sulfuric acid.
History
This substance ...
. He also helped
Louis Pasteur devise the experiment that would prove spontaneous generation to be false.
Botany and John Stuart Mill
Antoine Jérôme Balard met
John Stuart Mill while Mill was studying at the Montpellier Faculty of Sciences in the Winter of 1820.
In Mill’s journal of the period he writes of visiting Balard at his home, being shown his
herbarium and receiving from him a selection of his plants from the
Montpellier area, in addition to other accounts of the two embarking on daytrips around the city of Montpellier and to the sea to look for coastal plants. In a later letter to
Auguste Comte, Mill describes Balard as his first real friend. A ‘friend of my own choice as opposed to those given to me by family ties’.
A portion of John Stuart Mill’s Herbarium, believed to be in the vicinity of 4000 specimens, is housed at the
National Herbarium of Victoria
The National Herbarium of Victoria (Index Herbariorum code: MEL) is one of Australia's earliest herbaria and the oldest scientific institution in Victoria. Its 1.5 million specimens of preserved plants, fungi and algae—collectively known a ...
(MEL) and within the Mill Herbarium are contained these Balard collections,
mainly from the area of Montpellier.
References
Footnotes
Bibliography
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This article incorporates text from this public-domain publication.
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Further reading
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Balard, Antoine Jerome
1802 births
1876 deaths
Bromine
Collège de France faculty
Discoverers of chemical elements
École Normale Supérieure faculty
École pratique des hautes études faculty
19th-century French chemists
Members of the French Academy of Sciences
Scientists from Montpellier
Royal Medal winners
John Stuart Mill