Elements Boyle

The science of chemistry languished until Robert Boyle—a brilliant, fanatically religious man—wrote The Sceptical Chymist in 1661. He gave scientists a new way of seeing the world by defining an element as any substance that could not be broken down into a simpler substance, an idea that closely coincides with todays notion of an element. Boyles insight led chemists into their labs, where they heated solids and evaporated liquids and analyzed the gases that boiled off and the residues that remained behind. They isolated a flood of new elements. 

Robert Boyle was educated in alchemy in the mid-1600s, but he published a book called The Skeptical Chemist that attacked alchemy and advocated using the scientific method. He is sometimes called the founder of modern chemistry because of his emphasis on proving a theory before accepting it, but the birth of modern chemistry is usually attributed to Lavoisier. Boyle rejected the 4 classical elements and proposed the modern definition of an element. Boyle s law states that gas volume is proportional to the reciprocal of pressure. 

Corpuscles might well be divisible, but atoms by definition were not. Today, we associate atoms with chemical elements. Boyle definitely did not do so. That made for difficulties in relating theory to laboratory practice, for reasons we shall soon see. 

A strange narrative indeed Although The Sceptical Chymist rid chemistry of the Aristotlean Elements, Boyle was a believer in the possibility of transmutation (as was fellow member of the Royal Society Isaac Newton). 

A further distinction in XRF instruments is the method of x-ray detection. Wavelength dispersive instruments (XRF-WD) are more precise, but more time consuming. Energy-dispersive instruments (XRF-ED) are more rapid, but less precise and with poorer detection limits. An isotope-source energy-dispersive system can process 70 samples per day for 14 elements (Boyle, 2000). 

Variation in the concentration of the minerogenic elements provides a sensitive method for discriminating between sediment sources. For example, using a PCA biplot based on five elements, Boyle et al. (1999) were able to demonstrate that each of seven lakes in the Jianghan Plain, China, had different sediment compositions (Fig. 11). This permitted rejection of a hypothesis that there was a single source of terrigenous sediment. 

The first chemist to perform truly quantitative experiments was Robert Boyle (1627-1691), who carefully measured the relationship between the pressure and volume of air. When Boyle published his book The Skeptical Chymist in 1661, the quantitative sciences of physics and chemistry were bom. In addition to his results on the quantitative behavior of gases, Boyle s other major contribution to chemistry consisted of his ideas about the chemical elements. Boyle held no preconceived notion about the number of elements. In his view, a substance was an element unless it could be broken down into two or more simpler substances. As Boyle s experimental definition of an element became generally accepted, the list of known elements began to grow, and the Greek system of four elements finally died. Although Boyle was an excellent scientist. 

By definition a minor element in seawater is one has a concentration less than Ippm(m). It is experimentally challenging to determine the total concentrations, much less their major chemical forms. Development of new analytical techniques has greatly extended our knowledge (Johnson et al, 1992). Because early data (prior to about 1975) was so erratic, the principle of oceanographic consistency was proposed as a test for the data (Boyle and Edmond, 1975). According to this principle the analyses of minor elements should ... 

Robbins JA (1988) A model for particle-selective transport of tracers in sediments with conveyor-belt deposit feeders. Journal of Geophysical Research 91 8542-8558 Robinson LF, Belshaw NS, Henderson GM (in press) U and Th isotopes in seawater and modem carbonates from the Bahamas. Geochim Cosmochim Acta Rosenthal Y, Boyle EA, Labeyrie L, Oppo D (1995a) Glacial enrichments of authigenic Cd and U in subantarctic sediments A climatic control on the elements oceanic budget Paleoceanography 10(3) 395-413... 

River inputs. The riverine endmember is most often highly variable. Fluctuations of the chemical signature of river water discharging into an estuary are clearly critical to determine the effects of estuarine mixing. The characteristics of U- and Th-series nuclides in rivers are reviewed most recently by Chabaux et al. (2003). Important factors include the major element composition, the characteristics and concentrations of particular constituents that can complex or adsorb U- and Th-series nuclides, such as organic ligands, particles or colloids. River flow rates clearly will also have an effect on the rates and patterns of mixing in the estuary (Ponter et al. 1990 Shiller and Boyle 1991). 

Shiller AM, Boyle EA (1991) Trace elements in the Mississippi River Delta outflow region behavior at high discharge. Geochim Cosmochim Acta 55 3241-3251 Shiller AM, Mao L (2000) Dissolved vanadium in rivers Effects of silicate weathering. Chem Geol 165 13-22... 

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, constituting roughly 75% of the universe s normal mass and 90% of the atoms present in the universe. Elemental hydrogen was first described by the legendary Swiss alchemist Paracelsus (1493-1541), and later in 1671 by Robert Boyle, but was... 

Que Hee SS, Boyle JR. 1988. Simultaneous multi-elemental analysis of some environmental and biological samples by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry. Anal Chem 60 1033-1042. 

Boyle believed there were many elements. He defined them as primitive and simple, or perfectly unmingled bodies, which are the ingredients of all mixtures and compounds. Boyle thought these elements accounted for all the different properties of chemicals. From Boyle s pioneering work it became clear that elements cannot be changed into one another by ordinary methods. Therefore, the attempts to convert base (nonprecious) metals into gold were discontinued. 

The primary and immediate need is for a trace metal reference material, but a certified reference material would provide even greater benefits. A technique based on isotope dilution with detection by inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) (Wu and Boyle, 1998) most clearly meets the traceability criteria required for a certified reference material. Although useful for iron and several other metals, isotope dilution is not possible for monoisotopic elements like cobalt, so other techniques must also be used. Indeed, it is advisable that several techniques be used to certify a trace metal reference material. 

Chemistry as distinct from Alchemy and iatro-chemistry commenced with Robert Boyle (see plate 15), who first clearly recognised that its aim is neither the transmutation of the metals nor the preparation of medicines, but the observation and generalisation of a certain class of phenomena who denied the validity of the alchemistic view of the constitution of matter, and enunciated the definition of an element which has since reigned supreme in Chemistry and who enriched the science with observations of the utmost importance. Boyle, however, was a man whose ideas were in advance of his times, and intervening between the iatro-chemical period and the Age of Modem Chemistry proper came the period of the Phlogistic Theory — a theory which had a certain affinity with the ideas of the alchemists. 

---