HOT NEWS: Luke Bryan

Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen (March 30, 1811 - 16 August 1899) was a German chemist. He researched emission spectrum of heated elements, and with Gustav Kirchhoff discovered cesium (in 1860) and rubidium (1861). Bunsen developed several analytical methods of gas, was a pioneer in photochemistry, and doing preliminary work in the field of chemical organoarsenic. With his laboratory assistant, Peter Desaga, he developed the Bunsen burner, the improvement in laboratory burners then in use. The Bunsen-Kirchhoff Award for spectroscopy is named after Bunsen and Kirchhoff.
Bunsen was born in Göttingen, Germany, as the youngest of four children of the chief librarian, University of Göttingen 's and professor of modern philology, Christian Bunsen (1770-1837). After attending school in Holzminden, Bunsen in 1828 matriculated at Göttingen and studied chemistry with Friedrich Stromeyer, get a Ph.D. degree in 1831. In 1832 and 1833 he traveled in Germany, France, and Austria, where he met Friedrich Runge (who discovered aniline and 1819 isolated caffeine), Justus von Liebig at Giessen, and Eilhard Mitscherlich in Bonn.
 
Teachers University

In 1833 Bunsen became a lecturer at Göttingen and began experimental studies solubility (of metal salts of arsenous acid). Today, the discovery of the use of iron oxide hydrate as an accelerating agent still represents the best known antidote against arsenic poisoning. In 1836, Bunsen succeeded Friedrich Wöhler at Kassel Polytechnic School. Bunsen taught there for three years, and later received an associate teacher at the University of Marburg, where he continued his studies at cacodyl derivatives. He was promoted to full professor in 1841. Bunsen's work brought recognition of rapid and widespread, partly because cacodyl, which is highly toxic and experience spontaneous combustion in dry air, it is very difficult to work with. Bunsen nearly died from arsenic poisoning, and explosion at a cost cacodyl she looks in her right eye. In 1841, Bunsen created the Bunsen cell battery, using carbon electrodes rather than expensive platinum electrodes used in electrochemical cells William Robert Grove '. Early in 1851 he received a teacher at the University of Breslau, where he taught for three semesters.
black-and-white picture of two middle-aged men, one leaning with one elbow on the wooden column in the middle. Both wore long jackets, and men's shorter on the left has a beard.
Gustav Kirchhoff (left) and Robert Bunsen (right)
At the end of 1852 Bunsen became the successor of Leopold Gmelin at the University of Heidelberg. There he used electrolysis to produce pure metals such as chromium, magnesium, aluminum, manganese, sodium, barium, calcium and lithium. Long collaboration with Henry Enfield Roscoe began in 1852, where they study the photochemical formation of hydrogen chloride from hydrogen and chlorine.
Bunsen discontinued his work with Roscoe in 1859 and joined Gustav Kirchhoff to study emission spectra of the elements is heated, the area of research called spectrum analysis. For this work, Bunsen and his laboratory assistant, Peter Desaga, has perfected a special gas burner by 1855, influenced by previous models. Newer designs and Desaga Bunsen, which provides heat and fire are very clean, now called simply the "Bunsen burner".
There have been previous studies of the color characteristics of the heat element, but nothing systematic. In the summer of 1859, Bunsen Kirchhoff recommended that he try to form a prismatic spectrum of colors. In October of that year the two scientists have found an appropriate instrument, spectrometer prototype. Using it, they were able to identify the spectral characteristics of sodium, lithium, and potassium. After purification of tiring, Bunsen prove that very pure samples provide a unique spectrum. In the course of this work, Bunsen detected previously unknown new line of blue spectral emissions in mineral water samples from Duerkheim, Germany. He suspected that these lines indicate the presence of a chemical element that has not been found. After the careful distillation of forty tons of this water, in the spring of 1860 he managed to isolate 17 grams of new elements. He mentioned the name of the element "cesium", after the Latin word for blue. The next year he found rubidium, with a similar process.
In 1860, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Personality
Bunsen is one of the most admired scientists of his generation. He was a master teacher, devoted to his students, and they are equally devoted to him. At the time of strong scientific debate and often caustic, Bunsen always conducted himself as a perfect man, keep a distance from the theoretical disputes. He much preferred to work quietly in his lab, regularly enriched science with useful inventions. At the point of principle, he never took a patent, despite the fact that a new battery and new laboratory burner will surely bring great wealth. Bunsen never married.
Retirement and death
When Bunsen retired at the age of 78, he shifted his work solely to geology and mineralogy, an interest that has been pursued throughout his career. He died in Heidelberg was 88.

Related Posts