  ferdinand frederick henri moissan (september 28, 1852 â february 20, 1907) was a french chemist who won the 1906 nobel prize in chemistry for his work in isolating fluorine from its compounds. moissan was one of the original members of the international atomic weights committee. ==biography== moissan was born in paris september 28, 1852, the son of a minor officer of the eastern railway company, francis ferdinand moissan, and a seamstress, josephine amÃ©raldine (nÃ©e mitel).http://www.academie-sciences.fr/activite/archive/dossiers/fonds_pdf/fonds_moissan.pdf in 1864 they moved to meaux, where he attended the local school. in 1870 he left the school without the "grade universitaire" necessary to attend the university. he began working for a chemist in paris, where he was able to save a person poisoned with arsenic. he decided to study chemistry and began first at the laboratory of edmond frÃ©my and later at that of pierre paul dehÃ©rain. dehÃ©rain persuaded him to pursue an academic career. he passed the baccalaurÃ©at, which was necessary to study at university, in 1874 after an earlier failed attempt. during his time in paris he became a friend of the chemist alexandre lÃ©on Ãtard and the botanist vasque. he published his first scientific paper, about carbon dioxide and oxygen metabolism in plants, with dehÃ©rain in 1874. he left plant physiology and turned towards inorganic chemistry; subsequently his research on pyrophoric iron was well received by the two most prominent french inorganic chemists of that time, henri etienne sainte-claire deville and jules henri debray. after moissan received his ph.d. in 1880, his friend landrine offered him a position at an analytic laboratory. his marriage, to lÃ©onie lugan, took place in 1882. they had a son in 1885. during the 1880s, moissan focused on fluorine chemistry and especially the production of fluorine itself. he had no laboratory of his own, but used several laboratories, for example that of [[charles
1852_births 1907_deaths 19th-century_French_people 19th-century_chemists 20th-century_French_people 20th-century_chemists Burials_at_PA"re_Lachaise_Cemetery Deaths_from_appendicitis Elliott_Cresson_Medal_recipients Fluorine Foreign_Members_of_the_Royal_Society French_Jews French_Nobel_laureates French_chemists Inorganic_chemists Jewish_chemists Jewish_scientists Members_of_the_French_Academy_of_Sciences Nobel_laureates_in_Chemistry Scientists_from_Paris