Andrés Manuel del Río
Encyclopedia
Andrés Manuel del Río Fernández (10 November 1764 — 23 March 1849) was a Spanish
–Mexican
scientist
and naturalist
who discovered the chemical element
vanadium
.
and metallurgy
in Spain
, where he was born. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Alcalá de Henares in 1780. The government gave him a scholarship to enter the School of Mines in Almadén
, Spain, where he showed great aptitude. Later he moved to Paris
, where he studied under the chemist Jean Darcet
. He continued his studies in Freiberg
, Germany, under the direction of Abraham Gottlob Werner
. In Freiberg he got to know Baron Alexander von Humboldt
. He then returned to Paris as a student of Antoine Lavoisier
. During the French Revolution
Lavoisier, considered the founder of modern chemistry, was executed on the guillotine
. Del Río was forced to flee to England
. He also collaborated with Abbé René Just Haüy
, considered the founder of crystallography.
, with the object of reforming the study of mining and metallurgy in the colony. The institution was initially headed by Fausto Elhúyar
(1755–1833), the discoverer of tungsten
. The young del Río was named to the chair of chemistry and mineralogy. Del Río arrived at the port of Veracruz
on 20 October 1794, on the ship San Francisco de Alcántara out of Cádiz
.
Once in his new position, del Río dedicated himself to teaching and scientific investigation. On 17 April 1795 he opened the first course in mineralogy ever presented in New Spain. He made important studies of minerals and developed innovative methods in mining. In Mexico he collaborated with the German naturalist Baron Alexander von Humboldt. Humboldt was impressed with del Río, and wrote "It is in Mexico where the best work of mineralogy in Spanish has been published, the Elementos de Orictognosia of Señor Del Rio." In fact, this was the first book of mineralogy published anywhere in America. Humboldt was an active participant in the investigations of the College of Mining. He organized excursions to Chapultepec
, to the basaltic zone of Pedregal de Xitle, and to Peñón de los Baños, accumulating data and samples of minerals and rocks that were then submitted to chemical tests for identification.
In 1820 del Río was named a deputy to the Spanish Cortes. He was a liberal who argued for the independence of New Spain. He was in Madrid when Mexico gained its independence. Invited to remain in Spain, he nevertheless returned to Mexico (in 1821), which he considered his homeland.
In 1829, after the turbulent period of war with Spain, the government of independent Mexico expelled the Spaniards resident in the country, with some notable exceptions. Del Río was one of the exceptions. The expulsion had a major impact on the work of the College of Mining. The director, Fausto Elhúyar, was forced to resign and leave the country. Indignant over the expulsion of his colleagues, del Río showed solidarity by himself entering voluntary exile in Philadelphia. There he was highly honored, and his book was published in another edition. He returned to Mexico in 1834 and again occupied the chair of mineralogy at the College. tieg
In 1801, while examining mineral samples sent to him by the Purísima del Cardenal mine in Zimapán
in the state of Hidalgo, del Río arrived at the conclusion that he had found a new metallic element. He prepared various of its compounds, and observing their diverse colors, he named the element pancromium. Later, on observing that the compounds changed color to red on heating, he substituted the name eritronium for the element. (Eritros means red in Greek.) The following year he gave samples containing the new element to Humboldt, who sent them on to Hippolyte Victor Collet-Descotils in París for his analysis. Collet-Descotils's analysis found (mistakenly) that the samples contained only chromium
. Humboldt, in turn, rejected del Río's claim of the discovery of a new element, and del Río himself concluded his discovery had been an error.
In 1830, 29 years after its initial discovery, Professor Nils Gabriel Sefström
of Sweden rediscovered the element. He gave it its current name, vanadium, in honor of the Scandinavian goddess of love and beauty, Vanadis. In the same year, Friedrich Wöhler
, the German chemist who had synthesized urea
, analyzed some of del Río's samples and proved that vanadium and eritronium were the same. Later the U.S. geologist George William Featherstonhaugh
proposed without success that the element should be named rionium, in honor of its original discoverer.
In 1867 the English chemist Henry Enfield Roscoe
isolated the pure metal for the first time. He used hydrogen to get rid of the chloride around the pure vanadium.
in Mexico, on 29 April 1807. Four years later, during the Mexican war of independence, the royalists destroyed the ironworks. The iron he produced was superior to the celebrated imported iron from Biscay
, Spain.
He was bitter about Humboldt's mistake in not confirming the discovery of vanadium, and strongly reproached him. He continued to teach at the College of Mines until his death, a course that "could well have been taught at the Polytechnic school in Paris", according to Michel Chevalier
, who visited del Río shortly before the latter's death.
Andrés Manuel del Río died at 84 in 1849, after a long and productive academic career. His work and his liberal politics were important to the building of an independent Mexican nation. He was a founding member of the College of Mines, and laid the base for the current Institute of Geology of the University of Mexico
. He was a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Madrid, The Wernerian Natural History Society
of Edinburgh, the Royal Academy of Sciences
of France, the Economic Society of Leipzig, the Linnean Society of Leipzig, the Royal Academy of Saxony and the Philosophical Society
of Philadelphia. He was also president of the Geological Society of Philadelphia and the Lyceum of Natural History
of New York.
His extensive scientific work, besides the first identification of vanadium, included the discovery and description of various minerals and the invention of methods of extraction of minerals for use in the mining industry. After his death, the important mining district that includes Batopilas in Chihuahua was named in his honor.
The Chemical Society of Mexico instituted the prestigious National Chemistry Prize "Andrés Manuel Del Río" in 1964, with the object of giving public recognition to the work done by chemical professionals who have made extraordinary contributions to raise the level and prestige of the profession. It is awarded with a medal containing the likeness of del Río and a commemorative plaque.
When he died, he left his family a famous name, many debts, and some copies of his Elementos de orictogonosia (1804), which he had been unable to sell.
Andrés Manuel Del Río, Luis E. Miramontes
, inventor of the first oral contraceptive, and Mario J. Molina
, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
in 1995, are the three Mexican chemists of outstanding world significance. Miramontes won the "Andrés Manuel Del Río" Prize in 1986.
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
–Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
scientist
Scientist
A scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method. The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science. This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word...
and naturalist
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
who discovered the chemical element
Chemical element
A chemical element is a pure chemical substance consisting of one type of atom distinguished by its atomic number, which is the number of protons in its nucleus. Familiar examples of elements include carbon, oxygen, aluminum, iron, copper, gold, mercury, and lead.As of November 2011, 118 elements...
vanadium
Vanadium
Vanadium is a chemical element with the symbol V and atomic number 23. It is a hard, silvery gray, ductile and malleable transition metal. The formation of an oxide layer stabilizes the metal against oxidation. The element is found only in chemically combined form in nature...
.
Education
Andrés del Río studied analytical chemistryAnalytical chemistry
Analytical chemistry is the study of the separation, identification, and quantification of the chemical components of natural and artificial materials. Qualitative analysis gives an indication of the identity of the chemical species in the sample and quantitative analysis determines the amount of...
and metallurgy
Metallurgy
Metallurgy is a domain of materials science that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their intermetallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are called alloys. It is also the technology of metals: the way in which science is applied to their practical use...
in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, where he was born. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Alcalá de Henares in 1780. The government gave him a scholarship to enter the School of Mines in Almadén
Almadén
Almadén, Spain, is a town and municipality in the province of Ciudad Real, within the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha. The town is located at 4° 49' W and 38° 46' N and is 589 meters above sea level. Almadén is approximately 200 km south of Madrid in the Sierra Morena...
, Spain, where he showed great aptitude. Later he moved to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where he studied under the chemist Jean Darcet
Jean Darcet
Jean d'Arcet or Jean Darcet was a French chemist, and director of the porcelain works at Sèvres. He was one of the first to manufacture porcelain in France. In 1774 he was appointed professor of chemistry in the Collège de France and in 1795 he became a member of the Institute...
. He continued his studies in Freiberg
Freiberg, Saxony
Freiberg is a city in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, administrative center of the Mittelsachsen district.-History:The city was founded in 1186, and has been a center of the mining industry in the Ore Mountains for centuries...
, Germany, under the direction of Abraham Gottlob Werner
Abraham Gottlob Werner
Abraham Gottlob Werner , was a German geologist who set out an early theory about the stratification of the Earth's crust and coined the word Neptunism...
. In Freiberg he got to know Baron Alexander von Humboldt
Alexander von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt was a German naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt...
. He then returned to Paris as a student of Antoine Lavoisier
Antoine Lavoisier
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier , the "father of modern chemistry", was a French nobleman prominent in the histories of chemistry and biology...
. During the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
Lavoisier, considered the founder of modern chemistry, was executed on the guillotine
Guillotine
The guillotine is a device used for carrying out :executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which an angled blade is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the head from the body...
. Del Río was forced to flee to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. He also collaborated with Abbé René Just Haüy
René Just Haüy
René Just Haüy – 3 June 1822 in Paris) was a French mineralogist, commonly styled the Abbé Haüy after he was made an honorary canon of Notre Dame. He is often referred to as the "Father of Modern Crystallography." -Biography:...
, considered the founder of crystallography.
Mining in New Spain
In 1792 the Real Seminario de Minería (College of Mines) was founded in New Spain by a decree of King Charles III of SpainCharles III of Spain
Charles III was the King of Spain and the Spanish Indies from 1759 to 1788. He was the eldest son of Philip V of Spain and his second wife, the Princess Elisabeth Farnese...
, with the object of reforming the study of mining and metallurgy in the colony. The institution was initially headed by Fausto Elhúyar
Fausto Elhuyar
Fausto de Elhuyar was a Spanish chemist, and the joint discoverer of tungsten with his brother Juan José Elhuyar in 1783. Fausto de Elhuyar was in charge, under a King of Spain commission, of organizing the School of Mines in México City and so was responsible of building an architectural jewel...
(1755–1833), the discoverer of tungsten
Tungsten
Tungsten , also known as wolfram , is a chemical element with the chemical symbol W and atomic number 74.A hard, rare metal under standard conditions when uncombined, tungsten is found naturally on Earth only in chemical compounds. It was identified as a new element in 1781, and first isolated as...
. The young del Río was named to the chair of chemistry and mineralogy. Del Río arrived at the port of Veracruz
Veracruz
Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave , is one of the 31 states that, along with the Federal District, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided in 212 municipalities and its capital city is...
on 20 October 1794, on the ship San Francisco de Alcántara out of Cádiz
Cádiz
Cadiz is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the homonymous province, one of eight which make up the autonomous community of Andalusia....
.
Once in his new position, del Río dedicated himself to teaching and scientific investigation. On 17 April 1795 he opened the first course in mineralogy ever presented in New Spain. He made important studies of minerals and developed innovative methods in mining. In Mexico he collaborated with the German naturalist Baron Alexander von Humboldt. Humboldt was impressed with del Río, and wrote "It is in Mexico where the best work of mineralogy in Spanish has been published, the Elementos de Orictognosia of Señor Del Rio." In fact, this was the first book of mineralogy published anywhere in America. Humboldt was an active participant in the investigations of the College of Mining. He organized excursions to Chapultepec
Chapultepec
Chapultepec Park, more commonly called the "Bosque de Chapultepec" in Mexico City, is the largest city park in Latin America, measuring in total just over 686 hectares. Centered on a rock formation called Chapultepec Hill, one of the park's main functions is to be an ecological space in the vast...
, to the basaltic zone of Pedregal de Xitle, and to Peñón de los Baños, accumulating data and samples of minerals and rocks that were then submitted to chemical tests for identification.
In 1820 del Río was named a deputy to the Spanish Cortes. He was a liberal who argued for the independence of New Spain. He was in Madrid when Mexico gained its independence. Invited to remain in Spain, he nevertheless returned to Mexico (in 1821), which he considered his homeland.
In 1829, after the turbulent period of war with Spain, the government of independent Mexico expelled the Spaniards resident in the country, with some notable exceptions. Del Río was one of the exceptions. The expulsion had a major impact on the work of the College of Mining. The director, Fausto Elhúyar, was forced to resign and leave the country. Indignant over the expulsion of his colleagues, del Río showed solidarity by himself entering voluntary exile in Philadelphia. There he was highly honored, and his book was published in another edition. He returned to Mexico in 1834 and again occupied the chair of mineralogy at the College. tieg
The discovery of vanadium
Zimapan
Zimapan is a town and one of the 84 municipalities of Hidalgo, in central-eastern Mexico. The municipality covers an area of 860.9 km².As of 2005, the municipality had a total population of 34,476....
in the state of Hidalgo, del Río arrived at the conclusion that he had found a new metallic element. He prepared various of its compounds, and observing their diverse colors, he named the element pancromium. Later, on observing that the compounds changed color to red on heating, he substituted the name eritronium for the element. (Eritros means red in Greek.) The following year he gave samples containing the new element to Humboldt, who sent them on to Hippolyte Victor Collet-Descotils in París for his analysis. Collet-Descotils's analysis found (mistakenly) that the samples contained only chromium
Chromium
Chromium is a chemical element which has the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in Group 6. It is a steely-gray, lustrous, hard metal that takes a high polish and has a high melting point. It is also odorless, tasteless, and malleable...
. Humboldt, in turn, rejected del Río's claim of the discovery of a new element, and del Río himself concluded his discovery had been an error.
In 1830, 29 years after its initial discovery, Professor Nils Gabriel Sefström
Nils Gabriel Sefström
Nils Gabriel Sefström was a Swedish chemist. Sefström was a student of Berzelius and, when studying the brittleness of steel in 1830, he rediscovered a new chemical element, to which he gave the name vanadium....
of Sweden rediscovered the element. He gave it its current name, vanadium, in honor of the Scandinavian goddess of love and beauty, Vanadis. In the same year, Friedrich Wöhler
Friedrich Wöhler
Friedrich Wöhler was a German chemist, best known for his synthesis of urea, but also the first to isolate several chemical elements.-Biography:He was born in Eschersheim, which belonged to aau...
, the German chemist who had synthesized urea
Urea
Urea or carbamide is an organic compound with the chemical formula CO2. The molecule has two —NH2 groups joined by a carbonyl functional group....
, analyzed some of del Río's samples and proved that vanadium and eritronium were the same. Later the U.S. geologist George William Featherstonhaugh
George William Featherstonhaugh
George William Featherstonhaugh FRS was a British geologist and geographer who initiated the Albany and Schenectady Railroad and was a surveyor of the Louisiana Purchase for the US Government....
proposed without success that the element should be named rionium, in honor of its original discoverer.
In 1867 the English chemist Henry Enfield Roscoe
Henry Enfield Roscoe
Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe, FRS was an English chemist. He is particularly noted for early work on vanadium and for photochemical studies.- Life and work :...
isolated the pure metal for the first time. He used hydrogen to get rid of the chloride around the pure vanadium.
Later life
In 1805 del Río established an ironworks at Coalcomán. After overcoming numerous obstacles, he produced the first ironIron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
in Mexico, on 29 April 1807. Four years later, during the Mexican war of independence, the royalists destroyed the ironworks. The iron he produced was superior to the celebrated imported iron from Biscay
Biscay
Biscay is a province of Spain and a historical territory of the Basque Country, heir of the ancient Lord of Biscay. Its capital city is Bilbao...
, Spain.
He was bitter about Humboldt's mistake in not confirming the discovery of vanadium, and strongly reproached him. He continued to teach at the College of Mines until his death, a course that "could well have been taught at the Polytechnic school in Paris", according to Michel Chevalier
Michel Chevalier
Michel Chevalier was a French engineer, statesman, economist and free market liberal.-Biography:Born in Limoges, Haute-Vienne, Chevalier studied at the École Polytechnique, obtaining an engineering degree at the Paris École des mines in 1829.In 1830, after the July Revolution, he became a...
, who visited del Río shortly before the latter's death.
Death and recognition
National Autonomous University of Mexico
The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México is a university in Mexico. UNAM was founded on 22 September 1910 by Justo Sierra as a liberal alternative to the Roman Catholic-sponsored Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) (National Autonomous...
. He was a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Madrid, The Wernerian Natural History Society
Wernerian Natural History Society
The Wernerian Natural History Society , commonly abbreviated as the Wernerian Society, was a learned society interested in the broad field of natural history, and saw papers presented on various topics such as mineralogy, plants, insects, and scholarly expeditions...
of Edinburgh, the Royal Academy of Sciences
French Academy of Sciences
The French Academy of Sciences is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research...
of France, the Economic Society of Leipzig, the Linnean Society of Leipzig, the Royal Academy of Saxony and the Philosophical Society
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society, founded in 1743, and located in Philadelphia, Pa., is an eminent scholarly organization of international reputation, that promotes useful knowledge in the sciences and humanities through excellence in scholarly research, professional meetings, publications,...
of Philadelphia. He was also president of the Geological Society of Philadelphia and the Lyceum of Natural History
New York Academy of Sciences
The New York Academy of Sciences is the third oldest scientific society in the United States. An independent, non-profit organization with more than members in 140 countries, the Academy’s mission is to advance understanding of science and technology...
of New York.
His extensive scientific work, besides the first identification of vanadium, included the discovery and description of various minerals and the invention of methods of extraction of minerals for use in the mining industry. After his death, the important mining district that includes Batopilas in Chihuahua was named in his honor.
When he died, he left his family a famous name, many debts, and some copies of his Elementos de orictogonosia (1804), which he had been unable to sell.
Andrés Manuel Del Río, Luis E. Miramontes
Luis E. Miramontes
Luis Ernesto Miramontes Cárdenas , was a Mexican chemist known as the co-inventor of the progestin used in one of the first two oral contraceptives....
, inventor of the first oral contraceptive, and Mario J. Molina
Mario J. Molina
Mario José Molina-Pasquel Henríquez is a Mexican chemist and one of the most prominent precursors to the discovering of the Antarctic ozone hole. He was a co-recipient Mario José Molina-Pasquel Henríquez (born March 19, 1943 in Mexico City) is a Mexican chemist and one of the most prominent...
, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature,...
in 1995, are the three Mexican chemists of outstanding world significance. Miramontes won the "Andrés Manuel Del Río" Prize in 1986.
Selected scientific works
- Elementos de Orictognesia o del conocimiento de los fósiles, prepared for use in the Real Seminario de Mineria de México, 1795.
- Analyse des deus nouvelles espéces minérales composées de séléniure de zinc et de sulfure de mercure. Annals des Mines, Paris, 5, 1829.
- Découverte de l´iodure de mercure au Mexique. Annals des Mines, Paris, 5, 1829.
- Elementos de Orictognesia, o del conocimiento de los fósiles según el sistema de Bercelio; y según los principios de Abraham Góttlob Wérner, con la sinonimia inglesa, alemana y francesa, para uso del Seminario Nacional de Minería de México. Philadelphia, 1832.
