| Henri Moissan |
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| nobel laureates in chemistry | |
| french chemists | |
| jewish scientists | |
| french jews | |
| 1852 births | |
| 1907 deaths | |
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Fluorine's existence had been well known for many years, but all attempts to prepare it had failed - and some experimenters had died in the attempt. When prepared, it immediately reacted with anything around it and vanished again. Even Gold was not impervious to the attacks of elemental fluorine. Moissan eventually succeeded by Electrolysing a Solution of Potassium Hydrogen Fluoride (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 cooled the apparatus 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. Nickel can be used for apparatus handling elemental fluorine. A protective layer of nickel fluoride develops on the surface - like oxide layers for example on aluminium. Moissan went on to study fluorine chemistry in great detail, contributed to the development of the Electric Arc Furnace and attempted to use pressure to synthesise Diamond s from the more common form of Carbon . He died suddenly in Paris in February 1907 , shortly after his return from receiving the Nobel Prize in Stockholm . It is not known whether his experiments with fluorine contributed to his early death. The synthetic gemstone Moissanite composed of Silicon Carbide was named in his honor. |
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