Antoine Jérôme Balard

Antoine Jérôme Balard
260px Antoine Jérôme Balard in the 1870s
Born	(1802-09-30)30 September 1802 Montpellier
Died	Paris
Nationality	French
Fields	chemistry
Known for	discovery of bromine
Influenced	M.P.E. Berthelot
Notable awards	Royal Medal (1830)

Antoine Jérôme Balard (30 September 1802 – 30 April 1876) was a French chemist and one of the discoverers of bromine.

Career

Born at Montpellier, he started as an apothecary, but taking up teaching he acted as chemical assistant at the faculty of sciences of his native town, and then became professor of chemistry at the royal college and school of pharmacy and at the faculty of sciences. In 1826 he discovered in seawater a substance which he recognized as a previously unknown element and named bromine. It had been independently prepared by Carl Jacob Löwig the previous year and the two are both regarded as having discovered the element.

This achievement brought him the reputation that secured his election as successor to Louis Jacques Thénard in the chair of chemistry at the faculty of sciences in Paris, and in 1851 he was appointed professor of chemistry at the College de France, where he had M.P.E. Berthelot first as pupil, then as assistant and finally as colleague. Balard also had Louis Pasteur as a pupil when Pasteur was only 26 years old. It was in Balard's laboratory that Pasteur discovered the difference between "right-handed" and "left-handed" crystals while he was working with tartaric acid. Balard died in Paris in 1876.

External links

• Antoine Jérôme Balard and Louis Pasteur, PasteurBrewing.com