Christian Wilhelm Blomstrand (20 October 1826 – 5 November 1897) was a
Swedish mineralogist
Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical mineralogy, optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifact (archaeology), artifacts. Specific s ...
and
chemist
A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of ...
. He was a professor at the
University of Lund from 1862-1895, where he isolated the element
niobium
Niobium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Nb (formerly columbium, Cb) and atomic number 41. It is a light grey, crystalline, and Ductility, ductile transition metal. Pure niobium has a Mohs scale of mineral hardness, Mohs h ...
in 1864. He developed an early version of the
periodic table
The periodic table, also known as the periodic table of the elements, is an ordered arrangement of the chemical elements into rows (" periods") and columns (" groups"). It is an icon of chemistry and is widely used in physics and other s ...
and made advances in understanding the chemistry of
coordination compounds. Blomstrand published textbooks in chemistry and was well-known internationally for his scientific contributions.
Education and career
Blomstrand was born in
Växjö
Växjö () is a city and the seat of Växjö Municipality, Kronoberg County, Sweden. It had 71,282 inhabitants (2020) out of a Municipalities of Sweden, municipal population of 97,349 (2024). It is the administrative, cultural, and industrial ce ...
,
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
to his father John Blomstrand, who was a teacher, and his wife Severina Rodhe.
Blomstrand studied
mineralogy
Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical mineralogy, optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifact (archaeology), artifacts. Specific s ...
at the
University of Lund, where he earned a philosophy degree in 1850. He then became interested in chemistry and was the first recipient of the
Berzelius scholarship. In 1854, he completed his
habilitation
Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...
for research on
bromine
Bromine is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Br and atomic number 35. It is a volatile red-brown liquid at room temperature that evaporates readily to form a similarly coloured vapour. Its properties are intermediate between th ...
and
iodine
Iodine is a chemical element; it has symbol I and atomic number 53. The heaviest of the stable halogens, it exists at standard conditions as a semi-lustrous, non-metallic solid that melts to form a deep violet liquid at , and boils to a vi ...
compounds of
tin.
With the exception of lecturing at the Elementary Technical School of Malmö in 1855 and working as a mineralogist on an expedition to
Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen (; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian language, Norwegian: ''Vest Spitsbergen'' or ''Vestspitsbergen'' , also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipel ...
in 1861,
Blomstrand's entire career was at the University of Lund.
Blomstrand was appointed an adjunct lecturer and laboratory demonstrator in chemistry at the University of Lund in 1856.
He became a member of the
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences () is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special responsibility for promoting nat ...
in 1861.
He became a professor of chemistry and mineralogy at Lund in 1862, remaining there until his retirement in 1895.
He served as
rector of the university from 1871-1872.
The elements
Blomstrand's experimental research involved the characterization and analysis of minerals, particularly those which were rare or of unknown composition. These included
euxenite,
ilmenite,
monazite,
niobite, and
tantalite. He focused on the
chemical analysis
Analytical chemistry studies and uses instruments and methods to separate, identify, and quantify matter. In practice, separation, identification or quantification may constitute the entire analysis or be combined with another method. Separa ...
of what are now known as the group Vb subgroup of
Group 5 elements. These "earth acids" include the elements
tantalum
Tantalum is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ta and atomic number 73. It is named after Tantalus, a figure in Greek mythology. Tantalum is a very hard, ductility, ductile, lustre (mineralogy), lustrous, blue-gray transition ...
,
niobium
Niobium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Nb (formerly columbium, Cb) and atomic number 41. It is a light grey, crystalline, and Ductility, ductile transition metal. Pure niobium has a Mohs scale of mineral hardness, Mohs h ...
,
molybdenum
Molybdenum is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Mo (from Neo-Latin ''molybdaenum'') and atomic number 42. The name derived from Ancient Greek ', meaning lead, since its ores were confused with lead ores. Molybdenum minerals hav ...
,
tungsten
Tungsten (also called wolfram) is a chemical element; it has symbol W and atomic number 74. It is a metal found naturally on Earth almost exclusively in compounds with other elements. It was identified as a distinct element in 1781 and first ...
, and their various mineral associates.
In 1864, Blomstrand was the first person to successfully obtain the element
niobium
Niobium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Nb (formerly columbium, Cb) and atomic number 41. It is a light grey, crystalline, and Ductility, ductile transition metal. Pure niobium has a Mohs scale of mineral hardness, Mohs h ...
in pure form.
Blomstrand had been studying various metal chlorides, and he identified the oxychloride of niobium, NbOCl
3 as part of this investigation.
He then isolated niobium by placing niobium chloride in an atmosphere of hydrogen and heating it. In that way, he obtained pure metallic niobium as a steel-gray material.
[
] Niobium had previously been discovered in 1801 by English scientist
Charles Hatchett, using an ore obtained from the United States. Hackett named the element Columbium, only being renamed Niobium in 1950. However, the element was not obtained in pure form until Blomstrand conducted his investigations.
In 1870, Blomstrand proposed a new way of systematizing the
elements, a "natural system" based on
atomicity (the ability of elements to combine with other elements) and the electrochemical properties of the element. Organizing the elements into subgroups of even and odd atomicity revealed "extraordinary regularities".
While Blomsrand's system was a significant advance toward developing a periodic table of the elements, it did not account well for
metals. Blomstrand included his system in his revised edition of
Nils Johan Berlins popular textbook in 1870, and in his own textbooks in 1873 and 1875.
Dmitri Mendeleev
Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev ( ; ) was a Russian chemist known for formulating the periodic law and creating a version of the periodic table of elements. He used the periodic law not only to correct the then-accepted properties of some known ele ...
, later credited with developing the periodic table in widespread use, credited Blomstrand with important early advances leading to the organization of the
periodic system.
Chemical structure
One of Blomstrand's goals was to develop an understanding of how atoms are bonded together to form compounds and the resulting chemical structures of compounds.
He attempted to reconcile the
dualistic theory of
Jöns Jacob Berzelius with unitary and type theories.
Blomstrand developed the most widely accepted of the 19th century theories of
coordination complexes.
His chain theory (1869) was further developed, modified, and experimentally supported by his colleague
Sophus Mads Jørgensen
Sophus Mads Jørgensen (4 July 1837 – 1 April 1914) was a Danish chemist. He is considered one of the founders of coordination chemistry, mainly by being one of the pioneers of chain theory, and is known for the debates which he had with Alfred ...
.
Jørgensen prepared numerous examples of coordination complexes, providing an experimental foundation for Blomstrand-Jørgensen chain theory and for
Alfred Werner
Alfred Werner (12 December 1866 – 15 November 1919) was a Swiss chemist who was a student at ETH Zurich and a professor at the University of Zurich. He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1913 for proposing the octahedral configuration ...
s coordination theory (1893).
In developing the theory, Blomstrand reconciled the low reactivity of the ammonia molecules present in metal ammine complexes by theorizing that the ammonia molecules were chemically linked together in a chain, rendering them chemically unreactive. This chain theory was superseded in 1893, almost 25 years later, when
Alfred Werner
Alfred Werner (12 December 1866 – 15 November 1919) was a Swiss chemist who was a student at ETH Zurich and a professor at the University of Zurich. He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1913 for proposing the octahedral configuration ...
proposed his coordination theory.
Recognition
The island
Blomstrandhalvøya and the glacier
Blomstrandbreen on
Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen (; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian language, Norwegian: ''Vest Spitsbergen'' or ''Vestspitsbergen'' , also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipel ...
are named after him.
Representative publications
*
*
References
Further reading
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blomstrand, Christian Wilhelm
1826 births
1897 deaths
Swedish chemists
Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
19th-century Swedish chemists
Rare earth scientists
People from Växjö