Antoine Jérôme Balard

Antoine- Jérôme Balard ( born September 30, 1802 in Montpellier, France, † March 30, 1876 in Paris), and Ballard, was a French chemist and discoverer of the element bromine.

Life and work

Balard first completed a training in pharmacy in his native Montpellier. Inspired by the discovery of iodine by Bernard Courtois in 1811 in North Sea brown algae he tried to follow him. In studies of brown algae of the genus Fucus Sägetang - sec in the salty waters of Languedoc, he then discovered in 1826 that the residues adjacent to chloride and iodide contained another, until then unknown halogen. He succeeded in consequence of isolation. Because of the bad smell he called these chlorine- like substance bromine or bromine and determined the properties of this newly discovered element.

He discovered the light sensitivity of silver bromide. Later he proved the presence of bromine in marine plants and marine animals. The discovery of bromine was actually a by- product of his research on the lake and their ways of life. Balard operation beyond research on affordable methods of desalination of sea water. Louis Pasteur and Marcellin Berthelot were two of his students.