Analytical chemistry in works of Maria Skłodowska-Curie].

Maria Skłodowska-Curie--a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry--the elements of learning of chemistry gained just by a dint of work of more than ten months in Warsaw in the Institute of Industry and Agriculture Museum. The Nobel Prize concerned a contribution to the progress of chemistry through the discovery of radium and polonium, separation of radium and study of properties of this amazing element. It was awarded for an extremely arduous work, during which the chemical reactions being the principles of analytical chemistry were realized. Unlike to a typical analytical procedure, an initial attempt here was the thousands of kilograms of uranium ore: pitchblende. The final effect was small amounts of new elements: polonium and radium. Both the knowledge and the intuition of the researcher let her have a triumph. The difficulties she experienced because the properties of the searched chemical elements could only be evaluated thanks to the knowledge on other chemical elements. A significant achievement was the determination of the samples by means of radioactivity measurement, which gave rise to radiochemical analytical methods. An extreme analytical precision was demanded in multiple processes of fractional crystallization and precipitation which finally led to the calculation of the atomic mass of radium.

Citation

Adam Hulanicki. Analytical chemistry in works of Maria Skłodowska-Curie]. Kwartalnik historii nauki i techniki : Kwartal'nyĭ zhurnal istorii nauki i tekhniki -. 2012;57(1):9-21

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PMID: 22849241

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