page_title: Humphry Davy
section_title: Discovery of new elements
hierarchical_section_title: Humphry Davy / Royal Institution / Discovery of new elements
caption_attribution_description: English: A chunk of vapor-deposited magnesium crystals produced by the Pidgeon process at a refinery in China. Its maximum dimension is about 24&#160;cm long.
context_page_description: Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet PRS MRIA FGS FRS was a Cornish chemist and inventor, who is best remembered today for isolating, by using electricity, a series of elements for the first time: potassium and sodium in 1807 and calcium, strontium, barium, magnesium and boron the following year, as well as discovering the elemental nature of chlorine and iodine. Davy also studied the forces involved in these separations, inventing the new field of electrochemistry.
  In 1799, he experimented with nitrous oxide and was astonished at how it made him laugh, so he nicknamed it "laughing gas" and wrote about its potential anaesthetic properties in relieving pain during surgery. He also invented the Davy lamp and a very early form of arc lamp.
  Davy was a baronet, President of the Royal Society, Member of the Royal Irish Academy, and Fellow of the Geological Society. Berzelius called Davy's 1806 Bakerian Lecture On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity "one of the best memoirs which has ever enriched the theory of chemistry."
context_section_description: Davy was a pioneer in the field of electrolysis using the voltaic pile to split common compounds and thus prepare many new elements. He went on to electrolyse molten salts and discovered several new metals, including sodium and potassium, highly reactive elements known as the alkali metals. Davy discovered potassium in 1807, deriving it from caustic potash (KOH). Before the 19th century, no distinction had been made between potassium and sodium. Potassium was the first metal that was isolated by electrolysis. Davy isolated sodium in the same year by passing an electric current through molten sodium hydroxide.
caption: Magnesium metal crystals
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