Christian Friedrich Schönbein H
FRSE
Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...
(18 October 1799 – 29 August 1868) was a German-Swiss
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 th ...
who is best known for inventing the
fuel cell
A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical energy of a fuel (often hydrogen fuel, hydrogen) and an oxidizing agent (often oxygen) into electricity through a pair of redox reactions. Fuel cells are different from most bat ...
(1838) at the same time as
William Robert Grove
Sir William Robert Grove, FRS FRSE (11 July 1811 – 1 August 1896) was a Welsh judge and physical scientist. He anticipated the general theory of the conservation of energy, and was a pioneer of fuel cell technology. He invented the Grove volt ...
and his discoveries of
guncotton and
ozone
Ozone (), or trioxygen, is an inorganic molecule with the chemical formula . It is a pale blue gas with a distinctively pungent smell. It is an allotrope of oxygen that is much less stable than the diatomic allotrope , breaking down in the l ...
.
Life
Schönbein (Schoenbein) related to Michael Schoenbein was born at
Metzingen
Metzingen () is a Swabian city with about 22,000 inhabitants, in Reutlingen county, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, south of Stuttgart. Geography
The following towns and municipalities are on the borders of Metzingen, they are named starting ...
in the
Duchy of Württemberg
The Duchy of Württemberg (german: Herzogtum Württemberg) was a duchy located in the south-western part of the Holy Roman Empire. It was a member of the Holy Roman Empire from 1495 to 1806. The dukedom's long survival for over three centuries ...
. Around the age of 13 he was apprenticed to a chemical and pharmaceutical firm at
Böblingen
Böblingen (; Swabian: ''Beblenga'') is a town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, seat of Böblingen District. Sindelfingen and Böblingen are contiguous.
History
Böblingen was founded by Count Wilhelm von Tübingen-Böblingen in 1253. Würt ...
. Through his own efforts, he acquired sufficient scientific skills and knowledge to ask for, and receive, an examination by the professor of chemistry at
Tübingen
Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in three ...
. Schönbein passed the exam and, after a series of moves and university studies, eventually acquired a position at the
University of Basel
The University of Basel (Latin: ''Universitas Basiliensis'', German: ''Universität Basel'') is a university in Basel, Switzerland. Founded on 4 April 1460, it is Switzerland's oldest university and among the world's oldest surviving universiti ...
in 1828, becoming a full professor in 1835. He remained there until his death in 1868, and was buried in Basel.
Fuel cell
In 1839, Schönbein published the principle of the
fuel cell
A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical energy of a fuel (often hydrogen fuel, hydrogen) and an oxidizing agent (often oxygen) into electricity through a pair of redox reactions. Fuel cells are different from most bat ...
in the "Philosophical Magazine".
Ozone
It was while doing experiments on the
electrolysis
In chemistry and manufacturing, electrolysis is a technique that uses direct electric current (DC) to drive an otherwise non-spontaneous chemical reaction. Electrolysis is commercially important as a stage in the separation of elements from n ...
of
water
Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as ...
at the University of Basel that Schönbein first began to notice a distinctive odor in his laboratory. This smell gave Schönbein the clue to the presence of a new product from his experiments. Because of the pronounced smell, Schönbein coined the term "ozone" for the new gas, from the Greek word "ozein", meaning "to smell". Schönbein described his discoveries in publications in 1840. He later found that the smell of ozone was similar to that produced by the slow oxidation of white
phosphorus
Phosphorus is a chemical element with the symbol P and atomic number 15. Elemental phosphorus exists in two major forms, white phosphorus and red phosphorus, but because it is highly reactive, phosphorus is never found as a free element on Ea ...
.
The ozone smell Schönbein detected is the same as that occurring in the vicinity of lightning storms, an odor that indicates the presence of ozone in the atmosphere.
Explosives
Although his wife had forbidden him to do so, Schönbein occasionally experimented at home in the kitchen. One day in 1845, when his wife was away, he spilled a mixture of
nitric acid
Nitric acid is the inorganic compound with the formula . It is a highly corrosive mineral acid. The compound is colorless, but older samples tend to be yellow cast due to decomposition into oxides of nitrogen. Most commercially available ni ...
and
sulfuric acid
Sulfuric acid (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphuric acid ( Commonwealth spelling), known in antiquity as oil of vitriol, is a mineral acid composed of the elements sulfur, oxygen and hydrogen, with the molecular fo ...
. After using his wife's
cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...
apron to mop it up, he hung the apron over the stove to dry, only to find that the cloth spontaneously ignited and burned so quickly that it seemed to disappear. Schönbein, in fact, had converted the
cellulose
Cellulose is an organic compound with the formula , a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to many thousands of β(1→4) linked D-glucose units. Cellulose is an important structural component of the primary cell wa ...
of the apron, with the
nitro group
In organic chemistry, nitro compounds are organic compounds that contain one or more nitro functional groups (). The nitro group is one of the most common explosophores (functional group that makes a compound explosive) used globally. The nitr ...
s (added from the nitric acid) serving as an internal source of
oxygen
Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements ...
; when heated, the cellulose was completely and suddenly
oxidized
Redox (reduction–oxidation, , ) is a type of chemical reaction in which the oxidation states of substrate change. Oxidation is the loss of electrons or an increase in the oxidation state, while reduction is the gain of electrons or a ...
.
Schönbein recognized the possibilities of the new compound. Ordinary black
gunpowder
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). T ...
, which had reigned supreme in the battlefield for the past 500 years, exploded into thick smoke, blackening the gunners, fouling cannons and small arms, and obscuring the battlefield. Nitrocellulose was perceived as a possible "smokeless powder" and a propellant for
artillery
Artillery is a class of heavy military ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during si ...
shell
Shell may refer to:
Architecture and design
* Shell (structure), a thin structure
** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses
** Thin-shell structure
Science Biology
* Seashell, a hard o ...
s thus it received the name of
guncotton.
Attempts to manufacture guncotton for military use failed at first because the factories were prone to explode and, above all else, the burning speed of straight guncotton was always too high. It was not until 1884 that
Paul Vieille tamed guncotton into a successful progressive
smokeless gunpowder called
Poudre B. Later on, in 1891,
James Dewar
Sir James Dewar (20 September 1842 – 27 March 1923) was a British chemist and physicist. He is best known for his invention of the vacuum flask, which he used in conjunction with research into the liquefaction of gases. He also studied a ...
and
Frederick Augustus Abel
Sir Frederick Augustus Abel, 1st Baronet (17 July 18276 September 1902) was an English chemist who was recognised as the leading British authority on explosives. He is best known for the invention of cordite as a replacement for gunpowder in f ...
also managed to transform gelatinized guncotton into a safe mixture, called
cordite
Cordite is a family of smokeless propellants developed and produced in the United Kingdom since 1889 to replace black powder as a military propellant. Like modern gunpowder, cordite is classified as a low explosive because of its slow burn ...
because it could be extruded into long thin cords before being dried.
Legacy
In 1990 an
asteroid
An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...
was named after him or his dog.
Selected writings
The Letters of Faraday and Schoenbein 1836-1862London: Williams & Norgate 1899.
The Letters of Jöns Jakob Berzelius and Christian Friedrich Schönbein, 1830-1847London: Williams & Norgate 1900.
See also
*
Timeline of hydrogen technologies
References
Further reading
* Brown G. I. ''The Big Bang: A History of Explosives'', Sutton Publishing; 1998 ()
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Schonbein, Christian Friedrich
1799 births
1868 deaths
People from Metzingen
People from the Duchy of Württemberg
19th-century German chemists
Members of the French Academy of Sciences
Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
19th-century German inventors
19th-century Swiss inventors