W. Beck
Mar 16, 2004
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Journal
ChemInform
Abstract
The first chemical investigations and publications by Justus von Liebig dealt with the fulminates of silver and mercury. Even as a boy Liebig had learnt how to prepare silver fulminate, and as student of chemistry in Erlangen (1821) he studied the properties and reactions of silver fulminate. In Paris in 1823 (together with Gay-Lussac) he succeeded in analyzing quantitatively the highly explosive silver compound. This great experimental success with the dangerous silver fulminate was most important in three respects: i. The development of the experimental method later culminated in Liebig’s perfected and well-known C,H,N analysis of organic compounds (1830). ii. It led to the concept of isomerism when F. Wöhler found that silver cyanate had the same composition as silver fulminate. iii. It was decisive for furthering the scientific career of Liebig, since Alexander von Humboldt was highly impressed by the great skill and talent of Liebig and — by recommendation of Humboldt — Liebig became Professor in Gießen in 1824 (at the young age of 21). The first (fulminato)metal complex, K[Ag(CNO)2], was also isolated