Edward Charles Howard

Edward Charles Howard ( * May 28, 1774; † September 27, 1816 ) was an English chemist.

Life

Howard was the son of a high noble family. As a second son, he was to choose a profession and turned to chemistry. There he provided contributions in three very different areas:

• He discovered in 1799 that mercury fulminate, which was then widely used as a detonator for explosive charges.
• Howard had in 1802 a high percentage of nickel in iron meteorites after that was missing in terrestrial iron deposits and what Chladnis unwisely rested very young and controversial theory of 1794 an extraterrestrial origin of meteorites.
• He also improved the manufacture of sugar by vacuum evaporation ( 1813) and other measures. Instead in open kettles of syrup in closed, was cooked with steam-heated boilers, in which there was a negative pressure so that the boiling point is reduced and thus fuel requirements and sugar losses were reduced by caramelization ( " Howards Vacuum Pan ").

For the discovery of mercury fulminate him was in 1800 awarded by the Royal Society, the Copleymedaille.