1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Schönbein, Christian Friedrich

SCHÖNBEIN, CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH (1790–1868), chemist, was born at Metzingen, Swabia, on the 18th of October 1799, and died at Sauersberg, near Baden Baden, on the 29th of August 1868. After studying at Tübingen and Erlangen, he taught chemistry and physics, first at Keilhau, Thuringia, and then at Epsom, England, but most of his life was spent at Basel, where he undertook the duties of the chair of chemistry and physics in 1828 and was appointed full professor in 1835. His name is chiefly known in connexion with ozone, which he began to investigate in 1839, and with guncotton, which he prepared and applied as a propellant in fire-arms early in 1846. He was a most prolific writer, 364 papers appearing under his name in the Royal Society’s Catalogue, and he carried on a large correspondence with other men of science, such as Berzelius, Faraday, Liebig and Wöhler.

Many of his letters together with a life will be found in G. W. A. Kahlbaum’s Monographien aus der Geschichte der Chemie, vols. iv. and vi. (1899 and 1901).