Martin Klaproth, discoverer of uranium, zirconium, titanium, tellurium, strontium, cerium and chromium

1 December 1743, Brandenburg (Germany) - 1 January 1817, Berlin (Germany)

Martin Heinrich Klaproth was during most of his life a pharmacist in Hanover, Berlin, and Danzig in Germany, working for others and then establishing his establishment in 1780.

In 1782 he was promoted to pharmaceutical advisor to the Ober-College Medicum.

In 1787, he received the appointment of lecturer in chemistry of the royal artillery and when the university was founded in 1810, he was chosen to be professor of chemistry. During this time as a professor, he wrote and published a dictionary of chemistry.

He is considered the leading chemist of his time in Germany because he did much to improve and systematise the processes of analytical chemistry and mineralogy. His appreciation of quantitative methods led him to become one of the earliest followers of Antoine Lavoisier's doctrines outside France.

He discovered uranium, zirconium, and titanium and characterised them as different elements. Although he did not obtain these elements in their pure metallic state, he clarified the composition of the substances hitherto known, including the compounds of the then-known tellurium, strontium, cerium, and chromium.

His more than 200 works were collected in the ‘Beiträge zur chemischen Kenntnis der Mineralkörper’ (Contributions to the chemical knowledge of mineral bodies), in 5 volumes published between 1795-1810, and in writings and theories on organic chemistry and inorganic chemistry.