Chemistry, separation technique and invention · 1858–1929

Carl Auer von Welsbach

Auer von Welsbach trained under Bunsen in Heidelberg, where spectroscopic evidence was part of the ordinary equipment of chemistry, and returned to Austria to combine rare-earth separation with manufacture. He is one of the few figures in this history who both did the fractional crystallization himself and built industries on the products. His laboratory notebooks record separations carried through thousands of cycles; his commercial work turned two of the resulting oxides into a lighting product and a mixed rare-earth alloy into a spark-producing flint.