Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen was born on March 31, 1811, in Göttingen in the then kingdom of Hanover, now part of Germany.
Robert Bunsen’s father was a librarian and professor of modern philology at the University of Göttingen, so the young Robert was able to study chemistry, obtaining a Ph.D. in 1831.
After traveling in Germany, France, and Austria and meeting other chemists, in 1833, Robert Bunsen became a professor at the University of Göttingen and began experiments on the solubility of various salts of arsenous acid. Bunsen discovered the possibility of using iron oxide hydrate as an antidote for arsenic poisoning.
In 1836, Robert Bunsen took the place of the chemist Friedrich Wöhler at the Polytechnic School of Kassel, where he taught for three years. Bunsen was then accepted as an associate professor at the University of Marburg. There, he studied cacodyl derivatives, gaining fame but also risking his life because of arsenic poisoning and because of an explosion that caused him blindness in his right eye.
In 1841, Robert Bunsen created a battery that used a carbon electrode instead of platinum, making it much cheaper.
In the following years, Robert Bunsen first taught at the University of Breslau and then at the University of Heidelberg, where in 1852 he invented a method to produce through electrolysis various pure metals such as chromium, magnesium, aluminum, manganese, sodium, barium, calcium, and lithium.
Robert Bunsen worked for several years with Henry Roscoe to study the formation of hydrochloric acid, but in 1859, he went on to study spectrum analysis. of the elements along with Gustav Kirchhoff. It was for this work that Bunsen perfected the burner now known as the Bunsen burner.
In 186,0 his studies on spectrum analysis led him and Kirchhoff to isolate elements at the time unknown: cesium and rubidium.
In 1877, when the Royal Society started awarding the Davy Medal for an outstandingly important recent discovery in any branch of chemistry, Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff were the first to be awarded.
At 78, Robert Bunsen retired and devoted himself to geology and mineralogy, his old passions.
Robert Bunsen died on August 16, 1899, in Heidelberg, leaving an important legacy in the field of chemistry.
