German chemist · 1743–1817
Martin Heinrich Klaproth
Martin Heinrich Klaproth discovered uranium and zirconium in the same year, 1789, and was the most careful mineral analyst of his age. He also confirmed and named titanium and tellurium, which others had found first.
- Elements credited
- 2
- Discoveries
- 1789
- Co-discoverers
- 0
- Where
- Germany
The work
Klaproth dissolved pitchblende, a black ore from the silver mines of Saxony and Bohemia, and precipitated a yellow compound he concluded was the oxide of a new metal. He named it uranium after the planet Uranus, discovered eight years earlier. What he isolated was actually the oxide; the metal was obtained in 1841.
The same year he analysed zircon, a gemstone from Sri Lanka, and found a new earth he called zirconia. In both cases he insisted on repeating analyses with large samples and reporting the totals honestly, which made his results trusted across Europe.
Zirconium and Uranium side by side
Life and career
Klaproth was born in Wernigerode in the Harz mountains and trained as a pharmacist, running his own pharmacy in Berlin. He taught chemistry at the Prussian artillery school.
When the University of Berlin opened in 1810 he became its first professor of chemistry. He supported Lavoisier’s new chemistry in Germany at a time when many resisted it.
Also known for
- Named titanium (found by William Gregor) and tellurium (found by Müller von Reichenstein)
- Confirmed cerium independently of Berzelius