Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794) was a French scientist known as the father of modern chemistry. Through his experiments this discipline was first considered an exact science. Moreover, Lavoisier’s works allowed us to know some vital mechanisms about the activity of matter and chemical elements.

Below we will see a biography of Antoine Lavoisier and an explanation of his main scientific contributions .

Antoine Lavoisier: biography of the father of modern chemistry

Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier, better known as Antoine Lavoisier, was born in Paris on August 26, 1743. He grew up in a middle-class family under the care of his aunt, due to the early death of his mother.

From 1754 to 1761, Lavoisier studied humanities and science at Mazarin College, under the guidance of the astronomer and mathematician Abbe La Caille, one of the first to measure the meridian arc. Later he studied chemistry and botany, as well as law .

As a result of the latter, he was admitted to the Order of Barristers, an honorary organization that promotes instruction in law. However, Lavoisier did not devote himself to this exercise but rather opted for scientific research , and was thus admitted to the Academy of Sciences in Paris in 1768, at the age of 25.

A year later, he participated in the development of the first geological map of France and continued to carry out multidisciplinary tasks in the same context. In 1771 she married Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, who was quickly trained in the scientific context of Lavoisier, and later edited and published her husband’s memoirs. Lavoisier died at the guillotine of the French revolution on 8 May 1794.

5 main scientific contributions

Like other scientists of his generation, Antoine Lavoisier was trained as an expert in many different areas. For this reason he contributed not only to modern chemistry and science but also to the humanities and letters .

However, he is best known for having been the first scientist to conduct the first quantitative experiments in chemistry, which earned this discipline its immersion in the exact sciences. Because of this, Lavoisier is recognized as a pioneer in stoichiometry (the calculation of the properties of matter in chemical reactions).

Some of his most important experiments are about the nature of combustion, the role of oxygen in the oxidation of metal, the role of oxygen in the respiration of animals and plants, and the mechanism of alcoholic fermentation. We will now outline some of Lavoisier’s main contributions to chemistry.

1. Law on the conservation of matter

Lavoisier intended to study all the substances involved in the reactions he was studying. Through multiple experiments, he concluded that during chemical reactions, matter is not destroyed. He was thus one of the leading proponents of the laws of conversation of matter. In other words, he managed to prove that in a chemical reaction, the amount of material does not change, in any case its state is modified .

2. Combustion

Perhaps Lavoisier’s most renowned scientific contribution is to the nature of combustion. He describes it as the result of combining oxygen with another substance. Thus, he developed a theory of oxygen and its role in combustion; what finally constitutes as an experimental chemical theory on breathing and calcination .

This theory challenged the knowledge of the moment, derived from the theory of phlogiston, which supported the loss of mass after combustion.

3. Oxygen

Lavoisier argued that air, which is necessary for combustion, is also a source of acidity. I call the particle responsible for this oxygen, which in Greek means “sharp”, meaning that the sharp taste of the acids came from this particle.

Also showed that heat in animals is mainly caused by the combustion of carbon through oxygen , and that during physical activity, oxygen consumption increases, which produces more heat. On the other hand, he also argued that air is a mixture of gases, where elements such as nitrogen and oxygen are mainly found

4. H2O

On the other hand, he discovered that what until then had been known as “flammable air”, which he called “hydrogen” (from the Greek “water maker”), could produce water when combined with oxygen. The latter based on the previous work of another scientist named Priestley. Thus, it is attributed to Lavoisier to have investigated in depth and for the first time the composition of water and air .

5. The elements and their nomenclature

He developed the concept of “element” by arguing that these are simple chemicals, i.e. substances that cannot be broken down into simpler ones. From this he developed a series of proposals on the composition of complex compounds that arise from reactions between elements.

At this time there was no rational nomenclature on the elements that make up nature . Until then, theories used to focus on earth, water, air and fire. From Lavoisier’s studies, together with other French chemists, the Academy of Sciences accepted the existence of 55 simple substances which he called “chemical elements”. This facilitated communication between the chemists of the time, and introduced for the first time concepts such as “sulphuric acid” and “sulphates”.

Outstanding works

Some of Antoine Lavoisier’s main works are On Combustion in General and Memoirs on Combustion , both from 1777; General considerations on the nature of acids , from 1778, Reflections of phlogiston , from 1787, and Method of Chemical Nomenclature from 1787.

Bibliographic references:

  • Antoine Lavoisier (2016). New World Encyclopedia. Retrieved October 19, 2018. Available at http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Antoine_Lavoisier.
  • Donovan, A. (2018). Antoine Lavoisier. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved October 19, 2018. Available at https://www.britannica.com/biography/Antoine-Laurent-Lavoisier.