Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Stone (talk | contribs) at 14:10, 15 July 2008. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

William Francis Hillebrand (December 12 1853 – February 7 1925) was an American chemist. He was the son of the reknowned botanist William Hillebrand.

He studied in Germany at the University of Heidelberg and after he received his Ph.D in 1875 he worked with Robert Bunsen for some time. His research on metalic cerium which he togeter with Thomas Norton obtained first in 1872 stared his academic career.

During an analysis of the uranium containing mineral uranite he discovered that a gas evolved. He identified this gas by spectroscopic methods to be nitrogen. Several years later in 1895 William Ramsey did similar experiments with uranium containing minerals and discovered by similar methods that the gas was a mixture of argon and helium which was upto than only known to be existing in the corona of stars.

A reexamination of the samples of Hillebrand by Ramsay showed that the gas from uranite contained a large amount of nitrogen.

References

• Frank Wigglesworth Clarke. "William Francis Hillebrand" (PDF). Biographical Memoir of the National Academy of Science.

Template:BD

This biographical article about a chemist is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e

• German chemists
• American chemists
• Chemist stubs