The discovery of fluorine

By Richard Toon2011-09-01T00:00:00

The Barber Cup - a first century Roman vessel carved from a single piece of fluorspar (fluorite)

Source: The Trustees of the British Museum

The hazardous nature of hydrogen fluoride brought agony and death to investigators during early attempts to isolate fluorine

In the 1500s, Georgius Agricola, a German mineralogist, described a crystalline material that helped some ores melt at lower temperatures. He called it fluores, from the Latin fleure, meaning 'to flow'. Today we know it as fluorspar, fluorite, calcium fluoride or CaF₂. It was found to have a remarkable property.

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