How Oxygen Was Discovered

In the 1770s, a revolution in chemistry had just begun, starting in Uppsala, Sweden. A young apothecary named Carl Wilhelm Scheele began a series of experiments that led to the eventual downfall of an entire theory of fire that had dominated chemistry for a century. This theory was known as the theory of phlogiston; phlogiston was an invisible substance that released from materials when they burned and was absorbed by air or other substances. Scheele supported phlogiston from his results, but his went unpublished for five years, leading to another chemist, Joseph Priestley, getting credit for the discovery of what Scheele called "fire air." This is the story of how Scheele, Priestley, and a French chemist named Antoine Lavoisier discovered a substance that would eventually tackle the theory of phlogiston and replace it with a new theory of oxygen. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.