Discovery of Phosphorus

Named from the Greek word phosphoros ("bringer of light"), elemental Phosphorus is not found in its elemental form because this form is quite reactive. Because of this factor it took a long period of time for it to be "discovered". The first recorded isolation of phosphorus was by alchemist Hennig Brand in 1669 involving about 60 pails of urine. After letting a large amount of urine putrefy for a long time, Brand distilled the liquid to a paste, heated the paste, discarded the salt formed, and put the remaining substance under cold water to form solid  white phosphorus. Brand's process was not very efficient; the salt he discarded actually contained most of the phosphorus. Nevertheless, he obtained some pure, elemental phosphorus for his efforts. Others of the time improved the efficiency of the process by adding sand, but still continued to discard the salt. Later, phosphorus was manufactured from bone ash. Currently, the process for manufacturing phosphorus does not involve large amounts of putrefied urine or bone ash. Instead, manufacturers use calcium phosphate and coke (Emsley).

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