Nilson, Lars Fredrik

Scandium - the atomic number is 21 and the chemical symbol is Sc. The name derives from the Latin scandia for Scandinavia , where the mineral were found. It was discovered by the Swedish chemist Lars-Fredrik Nilson in 1879 from an ytterbium sample. In the same year, the Swedish chemist Per Theodore Cleve proved that scandium was Mendeleev s hypothetical element eka-boron , whose properties and position in the Period Table Mendeleev had previously predicted. 

Titanium - the atomic number is 22 and the chemical symbol is Ti. The name derives from the Latin titans, who were the mythological first sons of the earth . It was originally discovered by the English clergyman William Gregor in the mineral ilmenite (FeTiOj) in 1791. He called this iron titanite menachanite for the Menachan parish where it was found and the element menachin. It was rediscovered in 1795 by the German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth, who called it titanium because it had no characteristic properties to use as a name. Titanium metal was first isolated by the Swedish chemists Sven Otto Pettersson and Lars Fredrik Nilson. 

The discovery of Sc occurred separately from the above work. In 1840, C. J. A. Scheerer reported a new mineral euxenite which had been found near Jolster in Norway. An approximate analysis was made and many elements were detected including lanthanoids. Lars Fredrik Nilson in 1879 reported the isolation of2g of SC2O3 if om working up 10 kg of euxenite plus someresidues from several other minerals. 

Sven Otto Pettersson, 1848-1941. Professor of chemistry at the University of Stockholm from 1881-1908. Hydrog-rapher and oceanographer. He collaborated with Lars Fredrik Nilson in researches on metallic titanium and the physical constants of titanium and germanium. He was one of the first chemists to support Svante Arrhenius in his views on electrolytic dissociation. For a discussion of his hydrographic work see ref. (69). 

In 1887 Lars Fredrik Nilson and Otto Pettersson finally prepared the metal 95 per cent pure by reducing the tetrachloride with sodium in an airtight steel cylinder (24, 48). The titanium that Henri Moissan obtained from his electric furnace was free from nitrogen and silicon and contained only 2 per cent of carbon (25). 

Mendeleev had predicted that another element, which he called ekaboron and which he said would have an atomic weight between 40 (calcium) and 48 (titanium), would some day be revealed (20). It was discovered in 1879 by Lars Fredrik Nilson. 

Lars Fredrik Nilson, 1840-1899. Professor of analytical chemistry at the University of Upsala and at the Agricultural Academy at Stockholm. Discoverer of scandium His researches on soils and fertilizers transformed the barren plains of his native island into an agricultural region With Otto Pettersson he investigated the rare earths and prepared metallic titanium. 

Inside the City Wall of Visby. Lars Fredrik Nilson, the discoverer of scandium, received his early education in tins beautiful old city on Gothland... 

Birth of Lars Fredrik Nilson, the discoverer of scandium, in Ostergotland, Sweden. 

Although Sc was difficult to isolate, its existence and several of its chemical properties were predicted in 1871 by Dmitri Mendeleyev, who called it ekaboron because of its expected similarity to boron. Lars Fredrik Nilson first isolated its oxide (scandia) while persuing the oxide of a different rare earth. 

Four rare-earth elements (yttrium, ytterbium, erbium, and terbium) have been named in honor of this village. A year later, the Swedish chemist Lars Fredrik Nilson (1840-1899), discovered another element in "erbia" and he named it scandium (Sc) in honor of Scandinavia. At the same time, Nilson s compatriot, the geologist and chemist Per Theodor Cleve (1840-1905) succeeded in resolving the "erbia" earths yet another step further, when he separated it into three components erbium, "holmium" (Flo) and thulium (Tm). The name "holmium" refers to Stockholm (Qeve s native city) and had been independently discovered by the Swiss chemists Marc Dela-fontame (1838-1911) and Jacques-Louis Soret (1827-1890), who had coined the metal element X on the basis of its absorption spectrum. 

Ytterbium was one of nine new elements discovered in the mineral yttria at the end of the 19th century. Analyzing this mineral posed great difficulties for chemists of the time. The elements in yttria have very similar properties. That makes it difficult to separate them from each other. Three chemists, Jean-Charles-Galissard de Marignac (1817-1894), Lars Fredrik Nilson (1840-1899), and Georges Urbain (1872-1938), all deserve partial credit for discovering ytterbium. 

The very next year, a second Swedish chemist, Lars Fredrik Nilson, proved that Marignac was wrong. Ytterbium was not a new element, he said. Instead, it consisted of two other new elements. Nilson called these elements scandium and ytterbium. 

Swedish chemist Lars Fredrik Nilson discovers scandium. 

Table 2. Eka boron was predicted by Mendeleev and discovered by the Swedish physicist Lars Fredrik Nilson in 1879 and named scandium.

Lars Fredrik Nilson was born in 1840 in Skonberga. He studied in Uppsala and became an assistant and in 1878 professor of analytical chemistry there. In 1883 he was appointed professor of agricultural chemistry at the agricultural academy in Stockholm. He died in 1899 in Stockholm. In addition to rare earth elements he investigated inorganic complex compounds, later he published papers on agricultural chemical subjects. 

Discovery Lars Fredrik Nilson discovered scandium in Uppsala in 1879. The discovery confirmed Mendelejev s prediction that eka-boron would be found. 

Lars Fredrik Nilson, Uppsala Scandium 1879 Mendelejev s eka-boron... 

Lars Fredrik Nilson - Scandium and Agricultural Chemistry... 

Lars Fredrik Nilson (Figure 17.10) was born in 1840. His parents were originally farmers in Ostergotland, southern Sweden. Later, when Lars Fredrik was about 15 they moved to the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. At 19 he... 

At the end of his life Alfred Nobel had made his big bequest for literature and science. Lars Fredrik Nilson became engaged in discussing and planning how it should be used, for prizes and for the Nobel Institutes for research. 

Lars Fredrik Nilson (1840-1899), Swedish chemist who discovered scandium in... 

However, this methodological attitude also gave rise to the only instance of critical response to Mendeleev that I have found. This response came from one of the most advanced analytical chemists in Sweden—a pure laboratory chemist, who experienced all systems as too hypothetical. When the associate professor of chemistry at Uppsala University, Lars Fredrik Nilson (1840-99), determined the atomic weight of beryllium, his results did not fit the supposed place of the element in the system. He doubted not his own results but rather the system, which he would not take for granted, and certainly not only as a mere doctrine. At the very least he wanted the system to be better experimentally verified, a claim scientists in Sweden routinely demanded from any theory. Soon thereafter, chemists in Sweden could give such an experimental support. 

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