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New Mineral Acids

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Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Torbern Bergman

Part of the book series: Perspectives on the History of Chemistry ((PHC))

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Abstract

Three mineral acids were known to the chemists in the seventeenth century: sulphuric acid, nitric acid and hydrochloric acid. In addition, phosphoric acid was known, but as the only known source of this acid at the time was urine, it was not recognised as a mineral acid.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Not to be confused with chemist Johann Friedrich Meyer, who launched a theory of carbon dioxide and lime (Chap. 18).

  2. 2.

    This synthesis of potassium cyanide is certainly not the first approach that comes to the mind of a modern chemist, but it is easy to reproduce Scheele’s results. A powdered mixture of charcoal and potassium carbonate is heated to near fusion. Ammonium chloride is added and the mixture stirred until the sublimation of ammonium chloride ceases. The mixture is allowed to cool, extracted with water and filtered. Addition of iron(II) sulphate solution to the colourless filtrate gives a precipitate of iron carbonate. Addition of an acidic solution of iron(III) chloride dissolves the precipitate, and if the green solution is left for a few minutes, Prussian blue precipitates.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gothenburg, Sweden

    Anders Lennartson

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  1. Anders Lennartson
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Lennartson, A. (2020). New Mineral Acids. In: Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Torbern Bergman. Perspectives on the History of Chemistry. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49194-9_14

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