Masataka Ogawa
Encyclopedia
was a Japan
ese chemist known for the discovery of rhenium
, which he named nipponium.
After graduating from the University of Tokyo
, he studied under William Ramsay
in London, where he worked on the analysis of the rare mineral thorianite
. He extracted and isolated a small amount of an apparently unknown substance from the mineral, which he announced as the discovery of element 43
, naming the newly-discovered element nipponium. He published his results in 1909 and a notice was also published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society
. For this work, he was awarded a doctorate and the highest prize of the Tokyo Chemical Society. However, no other researchers were able to replicate his discovery, and the announcement was forgotten.
Recent research has indicated that whilst he did not identify element 43 (finally isolated in 1937 by an Italian group), he had apparently isolated element 75, rhenium
, which would not otherwise be successfully identified until 1925. Masataka served as president of Tohoku University
between 1919 and 1928.
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese chemist known for the discovery of rhenium
Rhenium
Rhenium is a chemical element with the symbol Re and atomic number 75. It is a silvery-white, heavy, third-row transition metal in group 7 of the periodic table. With an average concentration of 1 part per billion , rhenium is one of the rarest elements in the Earth's crust. The free element has...
, which he named nipponium.
After graduating from the University of Tokyo
University of Tokyo
, abbreviated as , is a major research university located in Tokyo, Japan. The University has 10 faculties with a total of around 30,000 students, 2,100 of whom are foreign. Its five campuses are in Hongō, Komaba, Kashiwa, Shirokane and Nakano. It is considered to be the most prestigious university...
, he studied under William Ramsay
William Ramsay
Sir William Ramsay was a Scottish chemist who discovered the noble gases and received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1904 "in recognition of his services in the discovery of the inert gaseous elements in air" .-Early years:Ramsay was born in Glasgow on 2...
in London, where he worked on the analysis of the rare mineral thorianite
Thorianite
Thorianite is a rare mineral, originally discovered by Ananda Coomaraswamy in 1904 as uraninite, but recognized as a new species by Wyndham R. Dunstan. It was so named on account of its high percentage of thorium ; it also contains the oxides of uranium, lanthanum, cerium and didymium...
. He extracted and isolated a small amount of an apparently unknown substance from the mineral, which he announced as the discovery of element 43
Technetium
Technetium is the chemical element with atomic number 43 and symbol Tc. It is the lowest atomic number element without any stable isotopes; every form of it is radioactive. Nearly all technetium is produced synthetically and only minute amounts are found in nature...
, naming the newly-discovered element nipponium. He published his results in 1909 and a notice was also published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society
Journal of the American Chemical Society
The Journal of the American Chemical Society is a weekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1879 by the American Chemical Society. The journal has absorbed two other publications in its history, the Journal of Analytical and Applied Chemistry and the American Chemical Journal...
. For this work, he was awarded a doctorate and the highest prize of the Tokyo Chemical Society. However, no other researchers were able to replicate his discovery, and the announcement was forgotten.
Recent research has indicated that whilst he did not identify element 43 (finally isolated in 1937 by an Italian group), he had apparently isolated element 75, rhenium
Rhenium
Rhenium is a chemical element with the symbol Re and atomic number 75. It is a silvery-white, heavy, third-row transition metal in group 7 of the periodic table. With an average concentration of 1 part per billion , rhenium is one of the rarest elements in the Earth's crust. The free element has...
, which would not otherwise be successfully identified until 1925. Masataka served as president of Tohoku University
Tohoku University
, abbreviated to , located in the city of Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture in the Tōhoku Region, Japan, is a Japanese national university. It is the third oldest Imperial University in Japan and is a member of the National Seven Universities...
between 1919 and 1928.