SefstrOm

The element was rediscovered in 1830 by Sefstrom, who named the element in honor of the Scandinavian goddess, Vanadis, because of its beautiful multicolored compounds. It was isolated in nearly pure form by Roscoe, in 1867, who reduced the chloride with hydrogen. 

A. M. del Rio in 1801 claimed to have discovered the previously unknown element 23 in a sample of Mexican lead ore and, because of the red colour of the salts produced by acidification, he called it erythronium. Unfortunately he withdrew his claim when, 4 years later, it was (incorrectly) suggested by the Frenchman, H. V. Collett-Desotils, that the mineral was actually basic lead chromate. In 1830 the element was rediscovered by N. G. Sefstrom in some Swedish iron ore. Because of the richness and variety of colours found in its compounds he called it vanadium after Vanadis, the Scandinavian goddess of beauty. One year later F. Wohler established the identity of vanadium and erythro-nium. The metal itself was isolated in a reasonably pure form in 1867 by H. E. Roscoe who reduced the chloride with hydrogen, and he was... 

Nils Gabriel Sefstrom (1787-1845) unambiguously proved its existence in Swedish bar iron. 

Discovered (1801) by the Mexican chemist Andres Manuel del Rio and re-discovered (1830) by the Swedish chemist Nils G. Sefstrom. 

Two unrelated discoveries of vanadium seem to have occurred. When he was experimenting with iron in 1830, Nils Gabriel Sefstrom (1787—1845), a Swedish chemist and mineralogist, identified a small amount of a new metal. Because vanadium compounds have beautiful colors, he named this new metal after Vanadis, the mythological goddess of youth and beauty in his native country, Scandinavia. 

Earlier, in 1801 in Mexico, Andres Manuel del Rio, a chemist and mineralogist, discovered an unusual substance he called erythronium, but he was told it was similar to chromium. Only later was it found to be vanadium. Some early references credit Del Rio with vanadiums discovery, but the most recent references list Sefstrom as the discoverer. 

Sometime later in 1869, vanadium metal was isolated from its ores by Henry Enfield Roscoe (1833—1915), but Sefstrom had already received credit for the discovery of the element vanadium. 

Vanadium V 1801 (Mexico City, Mexico) 1830 (Uppsala, Sweden) Andres del Rio (Mexican) Nils Sefstrom (Swedish) 93... 

Jons Jacob Berzelius, 1779-1848. Professor of chemistry and medicine at the Stockholm Medical School. He determined the atomic weights of most of the elements then known, discovered selenium and the earth ceria, and isolated silicon, thorium, and zirconium. Among his students may be mentioned Wohler, Heinrich and Gustav Rose, Mosander, Sefstrom, and... 

The Falun Mine Is the Oldest Copper Mine in Sweden. It was worked in the 13th century, and has been run almost continually ever since. Its present output of copper is small, but iron pyrite is still produced. The pyrite from this mine was the first source of selenium. Gahn, the discoverer of manganese, and Sefstrom, the discoverer of vanadium, lived in Falun. 

In 1831 the Swedish chemist Nils Gabriel Sefstrom discovered a new element in iron from the Taberg mine in Smaland. Sefstrom was bom on June 2, 1787, at Ilsbo Socken, Norra Helsingland (2). He studied medicine, and received his medical degree at the age of twenty-six years. After four years of practice in a hospital, he became a professor of chemistry and science at the Caroline Institute of Medicine and Surgery, and from 1820 to 1839 he taught chemistry at the newly erected School of Mines at Falun (2,54). 

Nils Gabriel Sefstrom, 1787-1845. Swedish physician and chemist Professor at the Caroline Institute of Medicine and Surgery and at the School of Mines in Stockholm. In 1831 he discovered vanadium, an element that proved to be identical with del Rio s erythronium. ... 

A thousand thanks, dear professor, for your kind letter with the beautiful story about the goddess Vanadis, which gave me great pleasure, although, frankly, it vexed me a little, though Only at first, to have made no visit to the beautiful one. Even if I had charmed her out of the lead mineral, I would have had only half the honor of discovery, because of the earlier results of del Rio on erythronium. But Sefstrom, because he succeeded by an entirely different method, keeps the honor unshared. As soon as I know the intimate relations of the metal, and you have sent me a little of it, I will analyze the lead mineral.. . . ... 

The cast iron in which Sefstrom discovered vanadium had been prepared from ore from the mine at Taberg, Sm land. When Daniel Tilas described this hill in 1760, he stated that iron had been smelted there since 1610 and that the supply of it was still almost inexhaustible (74). C. Beijell analyzed this ore in 1760 and found that it contained from 21 to 31.5 per cent of iron, that it was free from sulfur and arsenic, and that good, serviceable iron could be prepared from it (75). 

Taberg, Smlland, Sweden. Sefstrom discovered vanadium in iron from the... 

For a description of Sefstrom s method of isolating vanadium, it is necessary to quote again from the correspondence of Berzelius, this time from a letter to Dulong. On January 7, 1831, he wrote ... 

Sefstrom s own account of the discovery is also of great interest ... 

In one of his letters Berzelius mentioned to Wohler an unfortunate accident . . As Sefstrom came home to Falun, said he, to take up there... 

In May, 1830, a careful comparison of vanadium and uranium was made in Berzelius laboratory. It was found that vanadium forms two series of compounds, the vanadic and the vanadous, but Berzelius and Sefstrom did not succeed in isolating the metal. 

After N. G. Sefstrom had discovered vanadium in a soft cast iron from Eckersholm, Sweden, no mineral containing it as an essential constituent was known until Wohler analyzed the specimen of brown lead from Zimap n which del Rio had sent to Europe by Baron Alexander von Humboldt (73). Wohlers researches (45) proved that he had been... 

Weeks, M. E., Nils Gabriel Sefstrom. The sesquicentennial of his birth, ... 

Sefstrom, N. G., Utur Professor Sefstroms Berattelse om dess sista utlandska... 

Anon., Biografi ofver Nils Gabriel Sefstrom, K. Vet. Akad. Handl., 1845,... 

The details of N. G. Sefstrom s discovery of vanadium in soft iron from the Taberg Mine in Smaland, Sweden, and of F. Wohler s proof of the identity of erythronium and vanadium have already been related (14, 15, 16). Dr. Enrique Moles emphasized the fact that del Rio s own excessive modesty and scientific caution led him to renounce the discovery of the new element before the analysis of Collet-Descotils had been published. 

N. G. Sefstrdm s Portable Eight-Blast Forge. Fig. 20 Vertical section. Fig. 21. Transverse section a. .. a are the eight conical tuyeres from the bellows. With small pieces of dust-free wood charcoal as fuel, Sefstrom melted platinum in tins forge. 

A Page from Sefstrom s Laboratory Notes. Translation Cinchona reactions. 

Clemens Alexander Winkler was bom at Freiberg on December 26, 1838, but grew up in Zschopenthal, a village in the Saxon Erzgebirge where his father, Kurt Alexander Winkler, operated a smalt works. Kurt Winkler was himself a well-known chemist and metallurgist, who had studied under Berzelius and N. G. Sefstrom, and had fitted up an excellent metallurgical laboratory in the smalt works (7, 30). 

Sjoberg, S. G., Nils Gabriel Sefstrom and the discovery of vanadium, J. 

In 1839 Mosander heated some cerium nitrate and treated tire partly decomposed salt with dilute nitric acid. In the extract he found a new earth, which he named lanthana, meaning hidden, meanwhile retaining the old name, ceria, for the oxide which is insoluble in dilute nitric acid (7, 28, 45). In the same year, Axel Erdmann, one of Sefstrom s students, discovered lanthana in a new Norwegian mineral, which he named mosan-drite in honor of Mosander. 

Birth of Nils Gabriel Sefstrom, the rediscoverer of vanadium, in Ilsbo Socken, Sweden. Although vanadium is now known to be identical with del Rio s erythronium, the latter chemist did not distinguish clearly between chromium and the new element. 

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