German chemist · 1709–1782
Andreas Sigismund Marggraf
Andreas Sigismund Marggraf described how to isolate zinc in 1746. Zinc had been made in India and China for centuries, but his work established it as an element in European science.
How Zinc was found
Marggraf heated calamine, a zinc ore, with charcoal in a closed vessel, so that the zinc vapour could condense without burning. He described the process carefully, which is why European tradition credits him with the element.
Zinc smelting was in fact much older. Furnaces at Zawar in Rajasthan were producing zinc by distillation centuries earlier, and zinc was traded from China to Europe.
Life and career
Born 1709 · Died 1782
Marggraf was born in Berlin, the son of a court apothecary, and trained as a pharmacist. He became director of the chemistry laboratory of the Berlin Academy of Sciences.
In 1747 he showed that sugar from beets was identical to cane sugar, which led his student Franz Achard to found the first beet sugar factory. He was also one of the first to use a microscope in chemical analysis.
Also known for
- Found sugar in sugar beet
Discovered in the same era
Other elements identified within ten years of 1746.