03/26/1895 AD isolated
Scottish chemist Sir William Ramsay isolated helium on Earth by treating the mineral cleveite (a variety of uraninite with at least 10% rare-earth elements) with mineral acids. Ramsay was looking for argon but, after separating nitrogen and oxygen from the gas, liberated by sulfuric acid, he noticed a bright yellow line that matched the D3 line observed in the spectrum of the Sun.
These samples were identified as helium by Lockyer and British physicist William Crookes.
It was independently isolated from cleveite, in the same year, by chemists, Per Teodor Cleve and Abraham Langlet, in Uppsala, Sweden, who collected enough of the gas to accurately determine its atomic weight.
Helium was also isolated by the American geochemist, William Francis Hillebrand, prior to Ramsay's discovery, when he noticed unusual spectral lines while testing a sample of the mineral uraninite. Hillebrand, however, attributed the lines to nitrogen. His letter of congratulations to Ramsay offers an interesting case of discovery, and near-discovery, in science.
Subjects Who or What isolated?
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William Ramsay Scottish chemist who dis...
Objects To Whom or What was isolated?
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Helium (He) A colorless, odorless, t...
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