Swedish chemist · 1779–1848
Jöns Jacob Berzelius
Jöns Jacob Berzelius gave chemistry the alphabet it still uses. The one- and two-letter symbols such as O, Fe and Na were his idea, and he discovered cerium, selenium, silicon and thorium while measuring the atomic weights of almost every element then known.
- Elements credited
- 4
- Discoveries
- 1803–1829
- Co-discoverers
- 1
- Where
- Sweden
Discovery timeline
1803 · Sweden
Cerium is the most abundant rare-earth element. It is a soft, iron-grey metal that sparks when scratched.
1817 · Sweden
Selenium is a nonmetal whose electrical conductivity rises in light. It is an essential trace nutrient but toxic in excess.
1824 · Sweden
Silicon is a hard, shiny-grey metalloid and the second most abundant element in Earth’s crust. It is the foundation of modern electronics.
1829 · Sweden
Thorium is a weakly radioactive, silvery metal about three times more abundant than uranium. It is studied as a nuclear fuel.
The discoveries
In 1803 Berzelius and the mine owner Wilhelm Hisinger analysed a heavy mineral from Bastnäs and found a new oxide they named ceria, after the newly discovered asteroid Ceres. It was the first of the rare-earth elements to be recognised after yttrium.
In 1817 a red sludge in the lead chambers of a sulfuric acid works he co-owned at Gripsholm led him to selenium, named after the Moon because it resembled tellurium, named after the Earth.
He isolated reasonably pure silicon in 1824 by heating potassium fluorosilicate with potassium, and in 1829 found thorium in a black mineral sent to him from Norway, naming it after the Norse god Thor.
Life and career
Berzelius was born in Väversunda, Östergötland, was orphaned young and studied medicine at Uppsala. He became professor of medicine and pharmacy in Stockholm and secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
His yearly reviews of chemical progress made him the arbiter of European chemistry for decades, and his Stockholm laboratory trained a generation of chemists, including Arfwedson, Mosander and Wöhler. He was made a baron in 1835.
Also known for
- Modern chemical symbols and formulas
- Accurate atomic weights for about 45 elements
- Coined the words catalysis, isomer, polymer and protein