French chemist born in Paris, inventor of the first electric arc furnace, the Moissan furnace (1892), a heat chamber capable of reaching temperatures of 4100°C and allowing to reduce the minerals of certain metals, such as uranium, chromium, tungsten, vanadium, manganese, titanium and molybdenum, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1906). He studied at the Colegio de Meaux, the Paris Institute of Agronomy and the Institute of Toxicology and he worked at the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle and at the laboratories of Edmond Frémy, at the École de Pharmacie de Paris. He was professor of toxicology at the École de Pharmacie de Paris (1879-1886) and of inorganic chemistry at the Sorbonne, the University of Paris (1900).
His first studies were in biological chemistry, but later he turned to inorganic chemistry. Among his most notable scientific contributions was to prepare for the first time fluorine, in the form of a greenish-yellow gas, by electrolysis, from a solution of potassium fluoride and hydrofluoric acid, using electrodes of a platinum-iridium alloy (1886). The existence of fluor was known, but all attempts to obtain it had failed, including fatal accidents for some researchers as a result of experiences for their obtaining. He determined the properties of fluorine and, with James Dewar, managed to liquefy and solidify it.
He used his kiln to prepare calcium, silicon and tungsten carbides and first prepared artificial diamonds (1896). After joining the Academie des Sciences (1891), he discovered carborundum and demonstrated his method of preparing small artificial diamonds from carbon dissolved in cast iron, in the laboratory (1893), of great repercussion in those times. He died suddenly in Paris (1907), shortly after his return from Stockholm, after receiving the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for isolating fluorine and developing his oven.
Source: http://www.dec.ufcg.edu.br/biografias/
Order F - Biography - Brazil School
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/biografia/ferdinand-frederic-henri-moissan.htm
