Bunsen also developed several gas-analytical methods, was a pioneer in photochemistry, and did early work in the field of organic arsenic chemistry. With his laboratory assistant Peter Desaga, he developed the Bunsen burner, an improvement on the laboratory burners then in use.
In 1833, Bunsen became a lecturer at Göttingen and began experimental studies of the (in)solubility of metal salts of arsenous acid. His discovery of the use of iron oxidehydrate as a precipitating agent led to what is still today the most effective antidote against arsenic poisoning. This interdisciplinary research was carried on and published in conjunction with the physician Arnold Adolph Berthold.[12][13] In 1836, Bunsen succeeded Friedrich Wöhler at the Polytechnic School of Kassel (German: Baugewerkschule Kassel). Bunsen taught there for three years, and then accepted an associate professorship at the University of Marburg, where he continued his studies on cacodyl derivatives. He was promoted to full professorship in 1841. While at University of Marburg, Bunsen participated in the 1846 expedition for the investigation of Iceland's volcanoes.[14]
Bunsen's work brought him quick and wide acclaim, partly because cacodyl, which is extremely toxic and undergoes spontaneous combustion in dry air, is so difficult to work with. Bunsen almost died from arsenic poisoning, and an explosion with cacodyl cost him sight in his right eye. His work with Cadet's fuming liquid was an important step in the development of the radical theory of organic compounds.
There had been earlier studies of the characteristic colors of heated elements, but nothing systematic. In the summer of 1859, Kirchhoff suggested to Bunsen that he should try to form prismatic spectra of these colors. By October of that year, the two scientists had invented an appropriate instrument, a prototype spectroscope. Using it, they were able to identify the characteristic spectra of sodium, lithium, and potassium. After numerous laborious purifications, Bunsen proved that highly pure samples gave unique spectra. In the course of this work, Bunsen detected previously unknown new blue spectral emission lines in samples of mineral water from Dürkheim. He guessed that these lines indicated the existence of an undiscovered chemical element. After careful distillation of forty tons of this water, in the spring of 1860 he was able to isolate 17 grams of a new element. He named the element "caesium", after the Latin word for deep blue. The following year he discovered rubidium, by a similar process.[18][19][20]
In 1877, Robert Bunsen together with Gustav Robert Kirchhoff were the first recipients of the prestigious Davy Medal "for their researches and discoveries in spectrum analysis".[22]
Personality
Bunsen was one of the most universally admired scientists of his generation. He was a master teacher, devoted to his students, and they were equally devoted to him. At a time of vigorous and often caustic scientific debates, Bunsen always conducted himself as a perfect gentleman, maintaining his distance from theoretical disputes. He much preferred to work quietly in his laboratory, continuing to enrich his science with useful discoveries. As a matter of principle he never took out a patent. He never married.[2][23]
Despite his lack of pretension, Bunsen was a vivid "chemical character", had a well-developed sense of humour, and is the subject of many amusing anecdotes.[24]
Retirement and death
When Bunsen retired in 1889 at the age of 78, he shifted his work solely to geology and mineralogy, interests which he had pursued throughout his career. He died in Heidelberg, Germany on 16 August 1899, at the age of 88.[25][26]
^Sources disagree on Robert Bunsen's exact birth date. His parish register, as well as two curricula vitae handwritten by Bunsen himself, document 30 March 1811 as Bunsen's true birth date;[1][2][3][4] however, many later sources cite 31 March as the date.[5][6][7][8][9][10] According to his biographer Georg Lockemann, Bunsen himself celebrated his birthday on the 31st in his later years. Lockemann nevertheless regarded the 30th as the correct date.[4]
References
^Martin Quack (2011). "Wann wurde Robert Wilhelm Bunsen geboren?". Bunsen-Magazin. 2. Deutsche Bunsen-Gesellschaft für Physikalische Chemie: 56–57.
^ abRobert Wilhelm Bunsens Korrespondenz vor dem Antritt der Heidelberger Professur (1852): kritische Edition; Christine Stock, [ed.] Stuttgart: Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft, 2007. ISBN3-8047-2320-9
^"Robert Wilhelm Bunsen", Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Web. 3 April 2011
^ abGeorg Lockemann: Robert Wilhelm Bunsen. Lebensbild eines deutschen Naturforschers, Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft Stuttgart, 1949, p. 18
^Teller, J. D. (1943). "Humanizing Science and Mathematics by Commemorating March Anniversaries". School Science and Mathematics. 43 (3): 234–250. doi:10.1111/j.1949-8594.1943.tb05846.x.
^Lockemann, G. (1949). Robert Wilhelm Bunsen. Stuttgart: Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft. pp. 214–223.
^Jensen, William B. (2013) Chapter 2, pp. 7–31 in "Characters in Chemistry: A Celebration of the Humanity of Chemistry", doi:10.1021/bk-2013-1136.ch002, American Chemical Society Symposium Series, Vol. 1136. ISBN9780841228016.
Sir Henry Roscoe's "Bunsen Memorial Lecture", in: Trans. Chem. Soc., 1900, reprinted (in German) with other obituary notices in an edition of Bunsen's collected works published by Wilhelm Ostwald and Max Bodenstein in 3 vols. at Leipzig in 1904. This is Gesammelte Abhandlungen von Robert Bunsen: im Auftrage der Deutschen Bunsen-Gesellschaft für angewandte Physikalische Chemie hrsg. von Wilhelm Ostwald und Max Bodenstein. 3 Bände. Leipzig: W. Engelmann, 1904
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