Discovery of oxygen

The credit for the discovery of oxygen is commonly split among three scientists: Joseph Priestly, Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Antoine Laurent Lavoisier.

In Leeds, England, Joseph Priestley extracted and described oxygen on August 1, 1774. At first he was not aware that he found a new element, however, but thought that the new gas was a complicated mixture consisting of saltpeter, earth and phlogiston.

Carl Wilhelm Scheele in made the discovery in 1772 but delayed publication of his work until 1777, whereas Priestly made discovery in 1774 and published his findings in 1775.

As recorded in Scheele laboratory notebook in 1771, he was able to isolate reasonably pure oxygen (he called ‘fire air’) from various compounds and went on to characterize it well enough.

By 1777 oxygen had not yet acquired even its permanent name. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier called it at that point ‘the purest part of the air’ and la little afterward ‘eminent respirable air’.

Rutherford called the gas ‘phlogisticated air’. Priestly named his gas ‘dephlogisticated air’.

The word ‘oxygen’ is a combination of Greek words that means ‘begetter of acids, since Lavoisier mistakenly believed that oxygen helped form acids.
Discovery of oxygen