Carlo Perrier, co-discoverer of technetium

July 7, 1886 (Turin, Italy) - May 22, 1948 (Genoa, Italy)

He studied chemistry at the Politecnico di Torino, graduating in 1908, and later obtained his doctorate at the University of Turin.

After working for a year at the Laboratory of Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry at the ETH Zurich, with Baur and Treadwell, he became assistant to Arnaldo Puitti at the University of Naples. There he befriended Ferruccio Zambonini and became increasingly involved in mineralogy and the study of radioactivity.

He then became assistant to Zambonini in Turin, and in 1921, after a competition, he became director of the State Laboratory of Geochemistry in Rome. In 1927, following another competition, he became an associate professor in Messina. Two years later he moved to Palermo.

In 1937, at the University of Palermo, Carlo Perrier, together with Emilio Gino Segrè, discovered technetium, in particular the 97 isotope of technetium, thus filling the last gap in the periodic table that had been long sought after. It was the first artificially produced element, hence its name. Technetium was found in a sample of molybdenum that had been bombarded with deuterons (heavy hydrogen ions) at the Berkeley University cyclotron.

This chemical element is widely used in medical applications for the diagnosis of diseases.

From 1939 he was a professor of mineralogy at the University of Genoa and was head of the Institute of Mineralogy until his death.

A mineral found in Nettuno (Lazio), a silicate of rare piles of earth, iron, manganese, and titanium, is named "perrierite" in his honour.