Adapted from an image by François-Séraphin Delpech (public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.
1778–1850
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac
Discovered boron in 1808.
Element
5BBoron
1808
In 1808 Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Louis Jacques Thénard in Paris, and Humphry Davy in London, each got boron out of borax by heating it with potassium. Their samples were impure: pure boron proved remarkably hard to make.
Keep exploring
Where the dates and stories on this page come from; each event on the timeline links to its own source.
- Joseph Louis Gay-LussacEncyclopaedia Britannica
- BoronRoyal Society of Chemistry
- Joseph Louis Gay-LussacWikipedia