page_title: Phosphorus
section_title: Discovery
hierarchical_section_title: Phosphorus / History / Discovery
caption_attribution_description: Robert Boyle
context_page_description: Phosphorus is a chemical element with the symbol P and atomic number 15. Elemental phosphorus exists in two major forms, white phosphorus and red phosphorus, but because it is highly reactive, phosphorus is never found as a free element on Earth. It has a concentration in the Earth's crust of about one gram per kilogram. In minerals, phosphorus generally occurs as phosphate.
  Elemental phosphorus was first isolated as white phosphorus in 1669. White phosphorus emits a faint glow when exposed to oxygen – hence the name, taken from Greek mythology, Φωσφόρος meaning "light-bearer", referring to the "Morning Star", the planet Venus. The term "phosphorescence", meaning glow after illumination, derives from this property of phosphorus, although the word has since been used for a different physical process that produces a glow. The glow of phosphorus is caused by oxidation of the white phosphorus — a process now called chemiluminescence. Together with nitrogen, arsenic, antimony, and bismuth, phosphorus is classified as a pnictogen.
  Phosphorus is essential for life. Phosphates are a component of DNA, RNA, ATP, and phospholipids.
context_section_description: The discovery of phosphorus, the first element to be discovered that was not known since ancient times, is credited to the German alchemist Hennig Brand in 1669, although other chemists might have discovered phosphorus around the same time. Brand experimented with urine, which contains considerable quantities of dissolved phosphates from normal metabolism. Working in Hamburg, Brand attempted to create the fabled philosopher's stone through the distillation of some salts by evaporating urine, and in the process produced a white material that glowed in the dark and burned brilliantly. It was named phosphorus mirabilis ("miraculous bearer of light").
  Brand's process originally involved letting urine stand for days until it gave off a terrible smell. Then he boiled it down to a paste, heated this paste to a high temperature, and led the vapours through water, where he hoped they would condense to gold. Instead, he obtained a white, waxy substance that glowed in the dark. Brand had discovered phosphorus. We now know that Brand produced ammonium sodium hydrogen phosphate, (NH
  ₄)NaHPO
  ₄. While the quantities were essentially correct (it took about 1,100 litres [290 US gal] of urine to make about 60 g of phosphorus), it was unnecessary to allow the urine to rot first. Later scientists discovered that fresh urine yielded the same amount of phosphorus.
  Brand at first tried to keep the method secret, but later sold the recipe for 200 thalers to D. Krafft from Dresden, who could now make it as well, and toured much of Europe with it, including England, where he met with Robert Boyle. The secret that it was made from urine leaked out and first Johann Kunckel (1630–1703) in Sweden (1678) and later Boyle in London (1680) also managed to make phosphorus, possibly with the aid of his assistant, Ambrose Godfrey-Hanckwitz, who later made a business of the manufacture of phosphorus.
  Boyle states that Krafft gave him no information as to the preparation of phosphorus other than that it was derived from "somewhat that belonged to the body of man". This gave Boyle a valuable clue, so that he, too, managed to make phosphorus, and published the method of its manufacture. Later he improved Brand's process by using sand in the reaction (still using urine as base material),
  4 NaPO
  ₃ + 2 SiO
  ₂ + 10 C → 2 Na
  ₂SiO
  ₃ + 10 CO + P
  ₄
  Robert Boyle was the first to use phosphorus to ignite sulfur-tipped wooden splints, forerunners of our modern matches, in 1680.
  Phosphorus was the 13th element to be discovered. Because of its tendency to spontaneously combust when left alone in air, it is sometimes referred to as "the Devil's element".
caption: Robert Boyle
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