Analysis With the Blowpipe

Johann Kunckel (1613-1703) seems to have been one of the first to use the blowpipe for analytical purposes. Using charcoal as a support for the sample, placed in a cavity, he could obtain valuable information about the sample composition by blowing on it with a pipe through the flame of a strong lamp. This technique was developed and used by chemists, mineralogists and metallurgists in the 18 century, especially in Sweden. 

Burchard [10.1] has described the whole history of the blowpipe. In his paper he also presents a comprehensive publications hst and beautiful color photos of blowpipes and portable laboratories. 

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Arfwedson immediately set to work analyzing meionite and leucite (3, 4, 5). He observed that although the leucite was very infusible, the meionite melted readily before the blowpipe, swelled, and formed an enamel. Since his analysis of meionite agreed closely with Klaproth s analysis of leucite, Arfwedson analyzed a specimen of leucite and found these two minerals to be very similar in composition, except that the leucite contained no lime. Suspecting, therefore, that the lime must be the cause of the meionite s fusibility, he mixed a little lime with the leucite, after which it, too, could be easily melted. 

Carl Friedrich Plattner was bom in 1800 at Klein-Waltersdorf near Freiberg, was educated at the Freiberg School of Mines, and became a professor of metallurgy and blowpipe analysis there. He was a great master of the art and science of analytical chemistry, and applied the blowpipe even to quantitative analysis. He made many promising experiments on the oxidation of sulfur dioxide to the trioxide by means of catalysts. Before the work was completed, however, he was stricken with apoplexy, which terminated fatally in 1858 (68). When F lix Pisani (1831—1920) examined pollucite four years after the discovery of cesium, he found that Plattner had mistaken his cesium sulfate for a mixture of the sulfates of sodium and potassium (8, 37, 58). 

Once it entered chemistry, the blowpipe proved to be a most delicate instrument for the qualitative analysis of mineral ores, revealing the presence of minute quantities of metal in very small samples. Chemists typically worked with samples the size of a mustard seed, and in those samples could detect even half a percent of a particular metal. This was far more sensitive than analysis in solution, the wet way. The blowpipe led to the discovery of several metals during Lavoisier s lifetime, including nickel, manganese, molybdenum, and tungsten. Because these metals could not be decomposed, Lavoisier duly listed them in his table of simple substances. 

The blowpipe and charcoal are very use-tw things to have about the laboratory in connection with the Bunsen burner. Numerous small operations can be conducted with tbeir aid. Blowpipe analysis is a very valuable means of determining minerals and other substances. 

Analysis of the product Replace the solid stopper on A with a one-hole rubber stopper which carries about 15 cm of glass tubing, 5 to 7 mm in internal diameter and sealed at one end. Shake enough chromium trioxide into this tube to fill two or three centimeters of its length, remove the tube, tap the oxide down to the closed end, and in a small blowpipe flame draw the tube out in the middle and seal it. All this should be done quickly so... 

The use of the Blowpipe in Chemical Analysis. . . with numerous notes and additions, 1822. 

According to von Engestrom, Cronstedt was a pioneer in using portable laboratories for mineral analysis in the field. Eigure 10.3 shows Torbern Bergman s portable laboratory with a silver blowpipe. 

Flattner s Blowpipe Analysis was revised by his former student, Hieronymus Theodor Richter, who, with Ferdinand Reich, discovered the element indium. 

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