Analytical Methodology from Lavoisier to Mendeleev

Within the period covered by Part II, 1789–1869, 37 true elements, almost all of them metals, were discovered. Prior to this time, about 14 metals had been discovered, excluding those that had been known from ancient times. The discovery of the elements during this period of interest is intimately related to the analytical methodologies available to chemists, as well as to a growing consciousness of just what an element is. Because these methods were also available to the less competent who may have lacked the skills to use them or the knowledge to interpret their results, their use also led to as many, if not more, erroneous discoveries in the same period. One can number among the major sources of error faulty interpretation of experimental data, the “rediscovery” of an already known element, sample impurities, very similar chemical properties (as in the case of the rare earths), the presence of an element in nature in very scarce or trace amounts, gross experimental errors, confusion of oxides and earths with their metals, and baseless dogmatic pronouncements by known “authorities” in the field. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier’s conceptualization of what constitutes an element was a radical break from the principles of alchemy. His stipulation that an element is a substance that cannot be further decomposed conferred an operational, pragmatic, concrete definition on what had previously been a more abstract concept. At the other end of the spectrum was the intuition of Dmitri Mendeleev who, contrary to the prevailing acceptance of Lavoisier’s concept, stressed the importance of retaining a more abstract, more fundamental sense of an element—an idea that in the long run enabled the development of the periodic table. What both men had in common is that they defined and named individual elements as those components of substances that could survive chemical change and whose presence in compounds could explain their physical and chemical properties. Mendeleev’s table has been immortalized in every chemistry classroom—and also concretely in Saint Petersburg, the city that saw most of his professional activity, by a spectacular building-sized model The analytical chemist depends on both of these concepts and indeed, analytical practice preceded Lavoisier’s concept by at least a century.