The first person to recognise that magnesium was an element was Joseph Black at Edinburgh in 1755. He distinguished magnesia (magnesium oxide, MgO) from lime (calcium oxide, CaO) …

Element Hydrogen (H), Group 1, Atomic Number 1, s-block, Mass 1.008. Sources, facts, uses, scarcity (SRI), podcasts, alchemical symbols, videos and images.

The first lithium mineral petalite, LiAlSi 4 O 10, was discovered on the Swedish island of Utö by the Brazilian, Jozé Bonifácio de Andralda e Silva in the 1790s.It was observed to give an …

Silicon makes up 27.7% of the Earth’s crust by mass and is the second most abundant element (oxygen is the first). It does not occur uncombined in nature but occurs chiefly as the oxide …

Nitrogen in the form of ammonium chloride, NH 4 Cl, was known to the alchemists as sal ammonia. It was manufactured in Egypt by heating a mixture of dung, salt and urine. Nitrogen …

The art of alchemy was handed down through the centuries from Egypt and Arabia to Greece and Rome, and finally to western and central Europe. The word is derived from the Arabian phrase …

Hydrochloric acid (HCl) was known to the alchemists. The gaseous element itself was first produced in 1774 by Carl Wilhelm Scheele at Uppsala, Sweden, by heating hydrochloric acid …

Interactive periodic table with information on element scarcity, discovery dates, melting and boiling points, group, block, and period.

Element Phosphorus (P), Group 15, Atomic Number 15, p-block, Mass 30.974. Sources, facts, uses, scarcity (SRI), podcasts, alchemical symbols, videos and images.

The credit for discovering oxygen is now shared by three chemists: an Englishman, a Swede, and a Frenchman. Joseph Priestley was the first to publish an account of oxygen, having made it in …