Paris, France/parisE416
Previous | Home | NextA closer look at the electrolysis apparatus. Professor Rivet explained that, using "French ingenuity," Moissan used four key ingredients in order to succeed:
(1) finding a chemical system that was electrically conductive, and yet did not contain water which would produce oxygen and not fluorine (KF/HF solution);
(2) constructing an apparatus which was inert to elemental fluorine (fluorite, CaF2);
(3) utilizing inert electrodes at a cold temperature so that the electrodes would not be attacked (Pt-Ir electrodes, in an apparatus contained with a condensed methyl chloride bath, -23ºC ); and
(4) using a chemical test which would prove the existence of elemental fluorine (spontaneous combustion with elemental silicon).
