science · 29 May 1794 · 230 years ago
birth
Born 29 May 1794; died 1 Feb 1882 at age 87.
Antoine Alexandre Brutus Bussy was a French chemist who first prepared magnesium in a coherent form (Mg, element 12). Although mostly a pharmaceutical researcher, in Mémoire sur le Radical métallique de la Magnésie (1831)*, he described a method to isolate magnesium. He heated magnesium chloride and potassium in a glass tube. When he washed out the potassium chloride, small, shining globules of magnesium remained. Magnesium was discovered by Sir Humphry Davy (1808) but prepared in a very small amount. It is a ductile silver white alkaline earth metal. Magnesium is the eighth most abundant element in the Earth's crust. Bussy also prepared beryllium, independently of Wöhler, in Aug 1928, by the action of potassium on beryllium chloride.
OnThisDay.net