Friedrich Stromeyer

Friedrich Stromeyer (2 August 1776 – 18 August 1835) was a German chemist. Stromeyer received his degree from the University of Göttingen in 1800. He was then on the staff of the university and was also an inspector of apothecaries.

He received his MD doctorate in 1800 at the University of Göttingen under Johann Friedrich Gmelin and Louis Nicolas Vauquelin

He discovered the element cadmium in 1817 while studying zinc compounds. Cadmium is an impurity in zinc compounds, although represented in very small quantities.

He was the first to recommend starch as a reagent for free iodine and he studied chemistry of arsine and bismuthate salts.

References

• Lockemann, Georg; Oesper, Ralph E. Friedrich Stromeyer and the history of chemical laboratory instruction, J. Chem. Ed. 1953, 30, pp. 202–204.
• I. Asimov, Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology (2nd Ed.), Doubleday, 1982, pp. 276–277.
• M.E. Weeks, Discovery of the Elements (7th Ed.), Leicester, H. M., Ed., J. Chem. Ed., 1968, pp. 502–508.
• J. R. Partington, A History of Chemistry, Macmillan, 1962, vol. 3, pp. 659–660.
• Biographisches Lexikon der hervorragenden Ärzte, Urban & Schwarzenberg, 1962, vol. 5, p. 566.