French Inventions - Chemistry

Chemistry

  • Discovery of natural rubber/latex by Charles Marie de La Condamine in 1736.
  • Oxygen by Antoine Lavoisier in 1778.
  • Hydrogen by Antoine Lavoisier in 1783.
  • The first extensive list of elements (see periodic table) by Antoine Lavoisier in 1787.
  • Leblanc process by Nicolas Leblanc in 1791.
  • Beryllium by Louis-Nicolas Vauquelin
  • Chromium by Louis-Nicolas Vauquelin in 1797
  • Appertization or Canning by Nicolas Appert in 1809.
  • Polyvinyl chloride in 1838 by Henri Victor Regnault (but the PVC will only be plasticized industrially nearly a century later).
  • Photovoltaic effect by A. E. Becquerel in 1839.
  • Pasteurization by Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard in April 1862.
  • Gallium by Paul Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran in 1875.
  • Production of Liquid oxygen by Louis Paul Cailletet in 1877 (at the same time but with another method than Raoul Pictet).
  • Artificial silk by Hilaire de Chardonnet in 1884.
  • Fluorine by Henri Moissan in 1886
  • Europium by Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran in 1890
  • Viscose by Hilaire de Chardonnet in Échirolles in 1891.
  • Chemical Bleach by Claude Berthollet and Antoine Germain Labarraque (with the Swedish chemist Karl Wilhelm Scheele and Scottish chemist Charles Tennant).
  • Polonium by Pierre and Marie Curie in July 1898.
  • Radium by Pierre and Marie Curie in December 1898.
  • Boron carbide by Henri Moissan in 1899.
  • Actinium by André-Louis Debierne in 1899.
  • Discovery of the Grignard reaction or Grignard reagent by Victor Grignard in 1900.
  • Laminated glass by the French chemist Edouard Benedictus in 1903.
  • Moissanite by Henri Moissan in 1904.
  • Neon lighting by Georges Claude in 1910.
  • Francium by Marguerite Perey in 1939.

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