Marc Charles Sauria (25 April 1812 – 22 August 1895)
JanineTissot.fdaf.org (in French) was a French chemist credited for inventing phosphorus-based matches in 1830–1831. Several events are believed to have led Sauria to his discovery, including the hydrogen lighter introduced in 1827 by

Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (, , ; 6 December 1778 – 9 May 1850) was a French chemist and physicist. He is known mostly for his discovery that water is made of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen (with Alexander von Humboldt), for two laws ...

and the demonstration by his chemistry professor Nicolet where a powder mixture of

potassium chlorate Potassium chlorate is a compound containing potassium, chlorine and oxygen, with the molecular formula KClO3. In its pure form, it is a white crystalline substance. After sodium chlorate, it is the second most common chlorate in industrial use. ...

and sulfur was detonated by a blow. During a long series of experiments, Sauria went on to add white phosphorus that helped ignite the mixture by friction. He finalized the invention by adding gum arabic to hold the powders together, and dipping pieces of wood into it. Sauria was a poor student at the time; however, Nicolet communicated his invention to German industrialist Friedrich Kammerer who had patented it and used it in mass production of matches. The British chemist John Walker had introduced a very similar match some five years earlier, where he used

antimony sulfide Antimony sulfide may refer to either of two compounds of antimony and sulfur: *Antimony trisulfide Antimony trisulfide (Sb2S3) is found in nature as the crystalline mineral stibnite and the amorphous red mineral (actually a mineraloid) metastib ...

instead of white phosphorus. However, the phosphorus matches became more popular, mostly because of the reduced smell of sulfur, and quickly replaced those made by Walker. Around the time of Sauria's death, some 3 trillion of white phosphorus matches per year were produced worldwide. However, white phosphorus was soon proven to be toxic and banned by the international

Berne Convention The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, usually known as the Berne Convention, was an international assembly held in 1886 in the Swiss city of Bern by ten European countries with the goal to agree on a set of leg ...

in 1906.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sauria, Charles 1812 births 1895 deaths 19th-century French chemists 19th-century French inventors