![]() This means that in molecules fluorine attracts electrons more powerfully than any other element can. ![]() Fluorine is the most electronegative element.It reacts, often very vigorously, with all of the other elements except oxygen, helium, neon and krypton. Fluorine is the most chemically reactive element.Henri Moissan, who first isolated fluorine, also produced the world’s first artificial diamonds by applying huge pressures to charcoal.Henri Moissan received the 1906 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his achievement. Fluorine was produced at the positive electrode. To limit corrosion he carried out his work in a platinum container and cooled the electrolytic solution in it to -23 oF (-31 oC.) The stoppers were made out of fluorite (a more modern name for our old friend fluorspar, which we began this section with). Moissan isolated fluorine by electrolysis of dry potassium hydrogen fluoride and anhydrous hydrofluoric acid. Ampere.” (1)įluorine was finally isolated in 1886, by French chemist Henri Moissan – whose own work was interrupted four times by serious poisoning caused by the element he was pursuing. He exchanged letters with Humphry Davy, and in 1813 Davy announced the discovery of the new element fluorine, giving it the name suggested to him by Ampere.ĭavy wrote: “… it appears reasonable to conclude that there exists in the fluoric compounds a peculiar substance, possessed of strong attractions for metallic bodies and hydrogen… it may be denominated fluorine, a name suggested to me by M. In 1809, French scientist Andre-Marie Ampere proposed that fluoric acid was a compound of hydrogen with a new element. ![]() English chemist Humphrey Davy wrote: “ is a very active substance, and must be examined with great caution. Several early attempts to isolate fluorine led to blindings and fatalities. Even small splashes of this acid on skin can be fatal. Often they produced what they called fluoric acid – now named hydrofluoric acid – a highly reactive and potentially deadly acid. Several chemists carried out experiments on fluorspar in the early 1800s including Gay Lussac, Louis Jacques Thenard, Humphry Davy, Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Joseph Priestley. The element name fluorine ultimately came from the ‘fluor’ in fluorspar. ![]() The element fluorine had not yet been discovered and the ‘fluor’ in fluorspar came from the Latin word ‘fluere,’ meaning ‘to flow,’ because this is what it allowed metals to do. Fluorspar (which we now know is mainly calcium fluoride) was very useful because it combined with the unwanted parts of metal ores, allowing the pure metal to flow and be collected. In 1530, German mineralogist Georgius Agricola described the use of the mineral fluorspar in metal refining. ![]()
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