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Chemistry and electrochemistry · 1778–1829

Humphry Davy

Davy came to the Royal Institution as a lecturer whose public demonstrations drew large audiences, and he used its unusually large voltaic battery as an analytical instrument. His argument was that if chemical combination involved electrical forces, then a sufficient electrical current should be able to undo combinations that no reagent could touch. The alkalis and alkaline earths were the test case: they had resisted every attempt at decomposition and were widely suspected of being compounds, but nothing available could reduce them.

Explore the supporting references at the foot of this article.

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Contribution & context

In 1807 he passed a current through moistened and then molten potash and soda and obtained potassium and sodium as metals; in 1808 he applied the same reasoning to the alkaline earths and obtained calcium, strontium, barium and magnesium, in most cases as amalgams that had to be worked up further. He also argued from failed decomposition experiments that chlorine is an element rather than an , and later designed the miners’ safety lamp.

RSC Periodic Table — PotassiumLANL Periodic Table — PotassiumRSC Periodic Table — PotassiumLANL Periodic Table — PotassiumRSC Periodic Table — Potassium

Discoveries in context

A battery takes elements out of their compounds ↗

Within two years a new electrical method released six elements that chemical reagents had never freed, because the compounds holding them were too stable to break by chemistry alone.

Continue the story

Follow a discovery, compare a material choice, or meet the people behind an idea.

DISCOVERY HISTORYA battery takes elements out of their compounds ↗See how a battery became the reagent that decomposed substances no chemical reagent could touch.SCIENTISTJöns Jacob Berzelius ↗Compare a contemporary who applied the same electrical reasoning and built a chemical notation around it.

Sources & further reading

  1. RSC Periodic Table — Potassium ↗Royal Society of ChemistryReference explanation · Source checked
  2. LANL Periodic Table — Potassium ↗Los Alamos National LaboratoryReference explanation · Source checked
  3. RSC Periodic Table — Potassium ↗Royal Society of ChemistryReference explanation · Source checked
  4. LANL Periodic Table — Potassium ↗Los Alamos National LaboratoryReference explanation · Source checked
  5. RSC Periodic Table — Potassium ↗Royal Society of ChemistryReference explanation · Source checked

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