The Real Story Behind Robert Bunsen

We all know who Robert Bunsen is; he's the guy that made the Bunsen burner, right? Wrong.  Robert Bunsen didn't invent "his" burner.  He just improved the existing model and made it popular in his labs.  His real love was for arsenic.  He was quite interested in arsenic since it has had a lot of popularity as a poison. He worked dedicatedly with the dangerous element, to the point where he had hallucinations and delirium from the disgustingly noxious fumes arsenic gives off.  To help treat himself, he developed iron oxide hydrate, which is still the best antidote for arsenic poisoning today.  You'd think the awful smell and poisoning would stop him from experimenting with arsenic, but you'd be wrong (...again). It took the explosion of a beaker full of arsenic. The shards of glass and the chemicals caused blindness in his right eye for the rest of his life, and such, he retired this strain of research.  If only he was wearing his goggles . . .

After that explosion, Bunsen began studying natural explosions, such as geysers and volcanoes.  He hand-collected the stuff that spewed from both.  He was quite the dare-devil.  He was the one that invented the spectroscope.  As we learned in the last lab we did, spectroscopes show the spectral lines for the elements that give off light.  Each element has its own, specific spectral lines.  In building the spectroscope, him and a student put a prism in a cigar box.  They then attached two lenses from telescopes to look inside.  The only thing that made it hard to see the spectral lines was finding a flame hot enough to heat the metals.  This is where he makes "his" Bunsen burner.  The only thing he changed from a normal burner was add an oxygen valve.  His invention of the spectroscope helped the development of the periodic table, which will be discussed in my next post. Stay tuned!