September 23, 1882 - Death of Friedrich Wöhler, the first to isolate beryllium and aluminum metal

From an early age, he showed great interest in medicine and chemistry. After completing his studies, he began studying medicine in Heidelberg and then travelled to Stockholm to continue his training in chemistry under the Swedish Berzelius.

He was one of the few scientists who became interested in organic chemistry.

Wöhler isolated the chemical elements aluminium metal and beryllium; he co-discovered beryllium, silicon and silicon nitride, discovered the synthesis of calcium carbide (obtaining acetylene from it) and demonstrated, with his synthesis of the organic compound called urea, that it is a product of vital processes that can be obtained in the laboratory from inorganic matter.

As a curiosity, in 1827 he obtained metallic aluminium as a fine powder and, in 1845, improved methods enabled him to obtain it in completely metallic globules. Nine years later Henri Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville, who was unaware of Wöhler's work, adopted the same methods in his efforts to prepare the metal on an industrial scale; the result of Wöhler's claim of priority was that the two scientists became good friends and joined in an investigation, published in 1856-1857, which yielded "adamantine boron". By the same method that had been successful with aluminium (reduction of chloride by potassium) Wöhler, in 1828, obtained metallic beryllium and yttrium.

Together with Justus Liebig, he published an investigation on bitter almond oil in which they demonstrated by their experiments that a group of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms can behave like an element, take the place of an element and be exchanged for other elements in chemical compounds. This laid the foundations for the doctrine of compound radicals, which had a profound influence on the development of chemistry.

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