Dobeirner

Many of the most important contributors

to the progress of chemistry in the eighteenth

and nineteenth centuries have intervened in

the story of platinum, fascinated by the

extraordinary properties of the metal and the

difficulties of rendering it malleable and

fabricating it. For instance there was Baume,

who first introduced the idea of forging it like

iron, and Wollaston, who made a scientific

business of this proposal. Another and later

one was the German chemist, J. W.

Dobereiner, best known as a great practical

teacher, as a founder of the study of catalysis,

Johann Wolfgang Dobereiner

1780-1849

Professor of Chemistry at Jena for

thirtynine years, a friend and prot6g.g

of Goethe. and the founder of the study of

catalysis. His discovwy of the power of

finely divided platinum to ignite a stream

of hydrogen caused a considerable stir

in chemical circles, and he was thefirst to

make use of what we now know as a

supported catalyst.

(From a portrait in the City Museum

at Jena)

AND THE REFINING

and, through his Theory of Triads, as a

pioneer of the Periodic System for classifying

the elements.

Dobereiner was born the son of a Bavarian

coachman and his education amounted to

nothing very much. At the age of 14 he

entered a pharmacy as apprentice and, after

three years of that, practised as assistant at

several places including Karlsruhe, Bayreuth

and Strasbourg. At the last he came into

contact with scientific men

...