Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794) was a French chemist and nobleman known as the "Father of Modern Chemistry." He was born in Paris, France, and studied law and science, earning a degree in law from the University of Paris in 1764 and becoming a member of the Academy of Sciences in 1768.
Lavoisier is best known for his work in the field of chemistry, particularly his discovery of the role of oxygen in combustion and his development of the law of conservation of mass, which states that the total mass of a system remains constant during a chemical reaction. He also helped to standardize chemical nomenclature and developed a system for naming chemical compounds that is still used today.
Lavoisier's contributions to chemistry revolutionized the field and paved the way for modern chemistry. He was also a prominent member of French society and held a number of important positions, including tax collector, director of the gunpowder commission, and member of the Royal Academy of Medicine.
Despite his many accomplishments, Lavoisier was executed during the French Revolution in 1794. His execution was likely due to his association with the unpopular tax-collecting agency and his noble status, rather than his scientific work. Nevertheless, Lavoisier's legacy in the field of chemistry lives on, and he is remembered as one of the greatest scientists of all time
Oxygen: Lavoisier is most famous for his discovery of the role of oxygen in combustion. He conducted a series of experiments in which he burned various substances in closed vessels, measuring the changes in weight before and after combustion. He discovered that the weight of the substance after combustion was greater than before, and concluded that the increase in weight was due to the substance combining with oxygen from the air.
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Phlogiston theory of Antoine Lavoisier
After being elected a junior member of the Academy of Sciences, Lavoisier began searching for a field of research in which he could distinguish himself. Chemists had long recognized that burning, like breathing, required air, and they also knew that iron rusts only upon exposure to air. Noting that burning gives off light and heat, that warm-blooded animals breathe, and that ores are turned into metals in a furnace, they concluded that fire was the key causal element behind these chemical reactions. The Enlightenment German chemist Georg Ernst Stahl provided a well-regarded explanation of these phenomena. Stahl hypothesized that a common “fiery substance” he called phlogiston was released during combustion, respiration, and calcination, and that it was absorbed when these processes were reversed. Although plausible, this theory raised a number of problems for those who wished to explain chemical reactions in terms of substances that could be isolated and measured. In the early stages of his research Lavoisier regarded the phlogiston theory as a useful hypothesis, but he sought ways either to solidify its firm experimental foundation or to replace it with an experimentally sound theory of combustion. In the end his theory of oxygenation replaced the phlogiston hypothesis, but it took Lavoisier many years and considerable help from others to reach this goal.
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