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Johann Rudolf Glauber (March 10? 1604– March 16 1670), a German-Dutch alchemist and chemist.
Born in Karlstadt am Main, he received no formal education and later he moved to the Netherlands and settled in Amsterdam (1655).
He might be regarded as a forerunner of contemporary chemists. His work and experiments resulted in discoveries of several analytic methods and he was the first to produce hydrochloric acid. Among other chemical compounds Glauber discovered sodium sulfate, which was named after him ("Glauber's salt").
The Chemical Garden (or Silica Garden) was first observed by Glauber in 1646. In its original form, the Chemical Garden involved the introduction of ferrous chloride (FeCl2) crystals into a solution of potassium silicate (K2SiO3, water glass).
The method of the manufacture of nitric acid was established by Glauber, in 1648. This method includes the heating of potassium nitrate with concentrated sulphuric acid.
Some historians of science have described him as one of the first chemical engineers.
References
- Herman Skolnik in W. F. Furter (ed) (1982) A Century of Chemical Engineering ISBN 0-306-40895-3 page 230