Wilhelm August Lampadius was born in

Hehlen Hehlen is a municipality in the district of Holzminden, in Lower Saxony, Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, an ...

, Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, on 8 August 1772 and died on 13 April 1842 in

Freiberg Freiberg is a university and former mining town in Saxony, Germany. It is a so-called ''Große Kreisstadt'' (large county town) and the administrative centre of Mittelsachsen district. Its historic town centre has been placed under heritage c ...

Kingdom of Saxony The Kingdom of Saxony (german: Königreich Sachsen), lasting from 1806 to 1918, was an independent member of a number of historical confederacies in Napoleonic through post-Napoleonic Germany. The kingdom was formed from the Electorate of Saxo ...

. He was a German pharmacist in

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, the population was 118,911. General information The ori ...

from 1785 until 1791. Also he was an "extraordinary professor" of chemistry and mineralogy in 1794 and an "ordinary professor" in 1795. He taught at the Mining Academy in Freiberg.
Lampadius is best known for inflaming the first coal gas lantern on European ground.

Life and work

Lampadius completed in five years (started in 1785) his qualifications and became a pharmacist by completing the exam. At the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

(1791–92) he was taught by Johann Friedrich Gmelin and

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1 July 1742 – 24 February 1799) was a German physicist, satirist, and Anglophile. As a scientist, he was the first to hold a professorship explicitly dedicated to experimental physics in Germany. He is remembered for ...

. After that he got to know

Martin Heinrich Klaproth Martin Heinrich Klaproth (1 December 1743 – 1 January 1817) was a German chemist. He trained and worked for much of his life as an apothecary, moving in later life to the university. His shop became the second-largest apothecary in Berlin, and ...

and Sigismund Friedrich Hermbstädt in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

. At the same time Joachim Graf von Sternberg offered Lampadius to accompany him on a research travel to

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

and China. Their trip stopped in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

because they did not get the permission to enter interior Russia. So Lampadius followed von Sternberg to his possessions in Bohemia. There he worked as a chemist for the ironworks in Radwitz. Gaslamp lampadius

Klaproth helped him to become a professor's assistant at the mining academy in Freiberg. He specialized himself for

metallurgical chemistry Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the sc ...

Abraham Gottlob Werner Abraham Gottlob Werner (; 25 September 174930 June 1817) was a German geologist who set out an early theory about the stratification of the Earth's crust and propounded a history of the Earth that came to be known as Neptunism. While most tenet ...

recommended Lampadius and he was named as a professor for metallurgy. In 1811/12 Lampadius illuminated his street in front of his house in Freiberg with the first

hard coal Anthracite, also known as hard coal, and black coal, is a hard, compact variety of coal that has a submetallic luster. It has the highest carbon content, the fewest impurities, and the highest energy density of all types of coal and is the high ...

gas lantern in Europe.

Chemistry

In 1796 he accidentally obtained

carbon disulfide Carbon disulfide (also spelled as carbon disulphide) is a neurotoxic, colorless, volatile liquid with the formula and structure . The compound is used frequently as a building block in organic chemistry as well as an industrial and chemical n ...

(''Schwefelalcohol'') by destilling

iron pyrite The mineral pyrite (), or iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula Fe S2 (iron (II) disulfide). Pyrite is the most abundant sulfide mineral. Pyrite's metallic luster and pale brass-yellow hue giv ...

s with moist charcoal. He concluded that sulphur and

hydrogen Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic ...

are the source materials for the 'alcohol of sulphur'. He is regarded as the discoverer for "alcohol sulfuris". He figured out that

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...

dissolves in acids more easily, if it is alloyed with

tin Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal. Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...

. His discovery lead him to realize the harmfulness of many plates and pans then used in food preparation and presentation.
He dealt also with researches about the fodder beet sugar. Wilhelm August Lampadius Grab Freiberg

Literature

* „Lampadius, Wilhelm August" by Albert Ladenburg in: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, edited by "the historical commission of the Bavarian Academy of science", Band 17 (1883), S. 578–579, digital full-text edition on Wikisource, URL: http://de.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=ADB:Lampadius,_Wilhelm_August&oldid=2267074 * "Lampadius" In: Partington: History of Chemistry, Volume three, London 1962, p. 596-597.

Web-Link

* Dietrich, Richard, "Lampadius, Wilhelm August" in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 13 (1982), S. 456 f. nlinefassung URL: http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/ppn118726145.html * „Lampadius, Wilhelm August" von Albert Ladenburg in: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, herausgegeben von der Historischen Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Band 17 (1883), S. 578–579, Digitale Volltext-Ausgabe in Wikisource, URL: http://de.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=ADB:Lampadius,_Wilhelm_August&oldid=2267074

References

External links

* nature.co

* de.wikisource.or

* for pictures: German Wikipedia :de:Wilhelm August Lampadius, Wilhelm August Lampadius {{DEFAULTSORT:Lampadius, Wilhelm August German pharmacists 1772 births 1842 deaths People from Holzminden (district) University of Göttingen alumni 19th-century German chemists 18th-century German chemists