French chemist · 1763–1829
Louis-Nicolas Vauquelin
Louis-Nicolas Vauquelin discovered two elements in two years: chromium in 1797 and beryllium in 1798. A farm labourer’s son, he became one of the most respected analytical chemists in France.
- Elements credited
- 2
- Discoveries
- 1797–1798
- Co-discoverers
- 0
- Where
- France
The work
In 1797 Vauquelin analysed crocoite, a vivid orange mineral from Siberia known as red lead. He found it contained the oxide of an unknown metal and obtained the metal itself the next year. Because its compounds come in so many colours, it was named chromium, from the Greek for colour.
At the request of the mineralogist René Just Haüy, who suspected beryl and emerald were the same mineral, Vauquelin analysed both in 1798. He found the same new earth in each. Its salts tasted sweet, so it was first called glucine; the metal is now known as beryllium.
Chromium and Beryllium side by side
Life and career
Vauquelin was born in Normandy and started as a laboratory boy for a pharmacist in Rouen. In Paris he became the assistant and later the collaborator of Antoine François Fourcroy.
He taught at the École Polytechnique, the Collège de France and the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle, and became director of the School of Pharmacy. In 1806 he and Pierre Robiquet isolated asparagine from asparagus, the first amino acid ever discovered.
Also known for
- Co-discoverer of asparagine, the first known amino acid
- Trained many leading French chemists, including Thénard