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Liebig Buys Platinum from Janety the Younger U by W Liebig Buys Platinum from Janety the Younger U By W. H. Brock Department of Astronomy and History of Science, University of Leicester In his standard work A History of Platinum, melt as a platinum-arsenic eutectic at an Donald McDonald has described the improve- attainable temperature of 597°C. By skilful ments made to the arsenic process for the control of the temperature, the unwanted purification and conferment of malleability arsenic was volatilised as arsenious oxidc, on platinum by Marc Etienne Janety, or leaving behind a pure button of malleable Jeanety (c.1750--1820) (I). The Swedish metal- platinum. lurgist Heinrich Scheffer had shown in 1751 Janety, a French royal goldsmith, is that heated platinum melts in the presence of probably best known for his preparation of arsenic. By the 1780s the preparation of an the metric standards of weight and length arsenic-platinum mixture had been developed in 1795; however, more important for the into a commercial process for working development of practical and quantitative platinum by French goldsmiths and jewellers. chemistry was the way in which the tech- In their arsenic process, the iron impurities niques he developed enabled his firm to present in South American native platinum supply the growing demand from European were oxidised with “white arsenic” (arsenious chemists for platinum crucibles and other acid), which also induced the platinum to apparatus. The chemist and encyclopaedist Justus von Liebig 1803 - 1873 The centenary of his death recalls the great part played by Liebig when, as Professor at Giessen, he established one of thefLrst laboratories in Europe devoted to experimental instruction in chemistry - a laboratory later to become famous as “a factory for the production of professors”. Platinum apparatus was needed in the analytical methods established by Liebig, and this note records his purchases of vessels from Janety at a date later than had previously been assigned to the dis- appearance of his jirm Platinum Metals Rev., 1973, 17, (3), 102-104 102 .4n rrtrrrrt from th~Inhorntory aceorint book kept b.y Liebig rprordrrig ifre pnrchusr qf platinum apparatus from JanPty in Yaria in 1828 Sheridan Muspratt (2) was to write that: platinum standards of length and mass for “in the multifarious operations of fusion, the new metric system. solution, evaporation, and weighing, connected with the labours of the chemist, no other During the Revolution, the abbey of St. substance can bear comparison with platinum”. Germain-des-Pres had been turned into a Crucibles were, of course, important in the factory for the production of saltpetre. analysis of minerals by alkali fusion, and for Following the nationalisation of church quantitative analysis generally. Chemists lands in 1796, Janety was given a plot of especially admired Janety’s vessels for their land belonging to the former abbey, his reliability and cheapness. neigh bours being the chemists Fourcroy, Janety first became interested in platinum Vauquelin and Deserves, to whom he sold in 1786 when he had an establishment on the a portion of the land on I October ISOI (4). corner of the rue de I’Arbre Sec and the rue Janety’s workshop at 19 rue de Colombier Bailleul, near the Louvre. Pelletier reported (now the rue Jacob in St. Germain des that within two years of entering the field Prks) was continued by his son, who worked Janety had succeeded in making platinum platinum by the less dangerous powder- “in large amounts very pure and very mal- metallurgy method that had been developed leable”. The French Revolution evidently in Spain by Pierre Franqois Chabaneau hit his sales outlets badly for, as W. A. and Fausto de Elhuyer (5). Srneaton has shown, Janety tried to find a In 1812 Professor Jean d’Arcet reported market in England through Sir Joseph in glowing terms to the SociW d’Encourage- Banks, the President of the Royal Society ment (6) on the platinum work carried out (3). However, in 1790 he received the patron- by Janety the younger, who had presented age of Lavoisier, and in 1792 the Academy the society with “platinum vessels of such of Sciences published a glowing report on large dimensions and perfect workmanship Janety’s work by Berthollet and Pelletier. that they had charged their chemical com- Nevertheless, no doubt because the Re- mittee to examine these new products of an publican atmosphere was unfavourable to industry that had been developed much his title of King’s Goldsmith, Janety retired further in France than in other countries”. to Marseilles in 1794 where he began to make Almost all foreign chemists, d‘Arcet con- metal parts for clock mechanisms. But the tinued, had come to France for their platinum following year he was called back to Paris apparatus, and M. Janety was the only by the Government in order to prepare the supplier of this metal to the required standard. Platinum Metals Rev., 1973, 17, (3) 103 In the absence of any precise information At this time Liebig was poised for his to the contrary it has been supposed that the great innovation in, and improvement of, Janety business continued only to about organic analysis by directly weighing the 1820 (7). However, evidence from Liebig’s products of organic oxidation with copper famous teaching and research laboratory at oxide. This method, and the general ground- Giessen in Germany suggests that the firm ing in qualitative and quantitative analysis went on supplying crucibles to chemists until which each of his students received, were to much later. Liebig’s laboratory accounts for be the hallmarks of his success as a chemical the period 1824 (when he was first appointed teacher and pioneer biochemist. Professor of Chemistry at Giessen) to 1833, In 1828 Liebig’s laboratory accounts record show that he purchased apparatus not merely the following purchase: locally, but from as far afield as Paris and fiir PlatinagefaRe von Paris, quittert von Prague (8). Quality, or speciality, were Jaunetty [sic] daselbst, einschliei3en 4 fl. 36 kr. Transportkosten, 115 fl. 52 kr. surely not the only factors here; probably it that is, platinum vessels (possibly crucibles was cheaper sometimes to import apparatus which, however, would be cxplicitl y Tiegel) from abroad than to buy locally. made by Janety in Paris cost approximately Liebig had studied in Paris for two years E10.40, including about 40p for transport. (1822-24) and no doubt had come to know (In 1842, &I ==IIflorins 6 kreuzer.) The date the special forte of Parisian instrument proves that the firm of Janety was still in makers, including that of Janety fils. It existence some eight years later than was is of interest, too, that in 1829 Liebig in- previously believed. vestigated the spongy platinum which had Unfortunately, no other purchases from been prepared previously by Edmund Davy Janety are recorded. It may be significant (9). Davy, Dobereiner and Zeise had all that the only other purchase of platinum prepared it by different methods, and dis- apparatus from Paris in these accounts covered its remarkable properties of absorbing (Platinadruth, presumably a scribal error for oxygen from the air and its subsequent Platinudruht, platinum wire) was made in ability to oxidise hydrogen to water, or 1830 from a different firm, Courtin. We may ethyl alcohol to acetic acid. However, Liebig showed that none of his predecessors had suggest tentatively, therefore, that Janety’s prepared what he named Plutinschwartz firm disappeared between 1828 and 1830. (platinum black) in pure form. This he References prepared by boiling platinic chloride with I D. McDonald, A History of Platimm, London, potash and precipitating the platinum black 1960, pp. 53-57, 96, 127-129; idem, Platinum Metals Review, 1968, 12, 142-145 with alcohol. He found, after careful washing 2 S. Muspratt, Chemistry Theoretical, Practical and drying routines, that it would absorb and Analytical, 2 vols., Glasgow, 1857-1860, up to two hundred and fifty times its volume vol. 2, p. 716 3 W. A. Smeaton, Platinum Metals Rev., 1968, of oxygen and spontaneously ignite com- 12964 bustible gases. However, although he 4 G. Kersaint, Revue d’Histoire de la Pharmacie, I959 47, 1-6. I am grateful to Dr W. A. thoroughly documented its highly absorbent Smeaton for this reference concerning properties and the diluting effect of absorption Fourcroy’s fine chemicals factory at 21 and 23 on its oxidising powers, the significance of rue de Colombier 5 McDonald, op. cit., pp. 62-68 platinum black for the theory and practice of 6 J. d’Arcet, Bull. Soc. d’Encouragement, 1812, catalysis remained for others to explore. It 11,207 appears that Liebig’s exceptionally pure 7 McDonald, op cit, p. 131 preparation was known for many years 8 W.H. Brock, Ambix, 1972, 19, 47-58 9 J. Liebig (Poggendorff) Annalen der Physik among chemists as “Liebig’s Platinum und Chemie, 1829, 17, 101-114 Black” (10). 10 Muspratt, op. cit., p. 720 Platinum Metals Rev., 1973, 17, (3) I 04 .
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