Oxygen
Oxígeno (O, Z=8)
- Date
- 1774 · confidence high
- Place
- Bowood House, Calne, Wiltshire, England
- Credited to
- Joseph Priestley (with Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Antoine Lavoisier)
- People
- 👤 Carl Wilhelm Scheele1742–1786👤 Joseph Priestley1733–1804
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
Priestley obtained 'dephlogisticated air' by heating mercury oxide with a lens; Scheele had prepared it in Uppsala around 1771, and Lavoisier interpreted it as an element and named it.
A three-way Priestley-Scheele-Lavoisier dispute; Scheele published late (1777).
What it led to
- Combustion theory and the collapse of phlogiston
- Lavoisier's chemical revolution
- Oxygen therapy and oxyacetylene welding
Built on
- The air's 'food of life' (Sendivogius)1604
- mercury oxide
- Burning lens
Made possible
- Modern chemical nomenclature1787
- Oxygen converter for steelmaking