Portrait of Louis Jacques Thénard

Adapted from ⁠an image (public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.

1777–1857

Louis Jacques Thénard

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.

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