Analytical chemistry · 1896–1978
Ida Noddack
Noddack, working with her husband Walter Noddack, applied X-ray spectroscopy to the systematic search for the last missing elements, processing very large quantities of ore to concentrate constituents present at parts per billion. She is also remembered for a 1934 paper criticizing Fermi’s claim to have made transuranium elements, in which she suggested the nucleus might instead have broken into large fragments — a suggestion nobody pursued for four years.
Explore the supporting references at the foot of this article.
Contribution & context
In 1925, with Walter Noddack and Otto Berg, she identified rhenium in platinum and columbite, the last element with a stable to be discovered in nature. The same team’s claim to element 43, masurium, was not reproduced and is not accepted.
ntrs.nasa.gov — RheniumRSC Periodic Table — RheniumCIAAW — Rheniumntrs.nasa.gov — RheniumUSGS — Technetium
Discoveries in context
Filling the gaps the table left open ↗
Mendeleev left blank places and stated what should occupy them; the elements that arrived turned an arrangement into a predictive instrument, and the last two gaps had to be manufactured.
Sources & further reading
- ntrs.nasa.gov — Rhenium ↗ntrs.nasa.govReference explanation · Source checked
- RSC Periodic Table — Rhenium ↗Royal Society of ChemistryReference explanation · Source checked
- CIAAW — Rhenium ↗Commission on Isotopic Abundances and Atomic WeightsReference explanation · Source checked
- ntrs.nasa.gov — Rhenium ↗ntrs.nasa.govReference explanation · Source checked
- USGS — Technetium ↗United States Geological SurveyReference explanation · Source checked
Sources and further reading. What the review labels mean