Nobel Prize in Chemistry · 1906
Henri Moissan
He freed fluorine, a fiercely reactive element, and built an electric furnace so hot that it opened up high-temperature chemistry.
The Nobel citation: “in recognition of the great services rendered by him in his investigation and isolation of the element fluorine, and for the adoption in the service of science of the electric furnace called after him”
- Born
- September 28, 1852, Paris, France
- Died
- February 20, 1907, Paris, France
- Affiliation at the time
- Sorbonne University, France
Chemistry prize
1906
Awarded alone.
Age that year
54years
Born in 1852.
Headline credited impact
3,680–6,120lives saved
Air-pollution deaths prevented by nuclear power replacing fossil fuels. How it was built
Sources cited
33
Fact-checked September 24, 2026.
- He isolated fluorine in 1886, after 74 years of failed attempts by other chemists, some of whom were badly injured or killed by its toxic acid.
- Industry still makes fluorine gas his way: by passing electricity through a mixture of potassium fluoride and hydrogen fluoride.
- The Nobel committee's majority first favored Dmitri Mendeleev, but the Academy chose Moissan. Mendeleev died 18 days before him, in early 1907.
- He was nominated 41 times from 1901 to 1906. He gave no Nobel lecture and died about two months after the prize ceremony.
- Moissanite, a rare natural form of silicon carbide that he found in a meteorite from Arizona, is named after him; lab-made moissanite is sold as a diamond alternative.
The breakthrough
Isolating fluorine (1886) and building the electric arc furnace (1892)
Fluorine is fiercely reactive. It is the most electronegative element, meaning it pulls electrons away from almost anything, so in nature it is found locked inside minerals such as fluorspar. By the early 1800s chemists suspected it existed, but for decades every attempt to free it failed, and several experimenters were badly poisoned by hydrogen fluoride, its dangerous acid. Catching fluorine was like trying to trap a thief who can pick every lock you build. Moissan found a way. Pure liquid hydrogen fluoride does not carry electricity, so he dissolved potassium fluoride in it to make it conduct. He built his cell from platinum and iridium, which fluorine attacks only slowly, closed it with fluorspar stoppers, and chilled it far below freezing to calm the reactions. On 26 June 1886, an electric current split the mixture: hydrogen formed at one electrode and a pale yellow gas at the other. It was fluorine. In 1892 he described an electric arc furnace: a giant spark leaping between two carbon rods set inside a box made of lime blocks, reaching about 3,500 degrees Celsius, far hotter than earlier furnaces. With it he melted substances once thought unmeltable, made new compounds called carbides, borides and silicides, and produced pure ingots of metals such as tungsten, molybdenum and titanium. He also claimed to have made tiny diamonds, a result later scientists could not confirm.[2],[3],[6],[7],[8],[12],[13],[14]
What it meant for humanity
Moissan's two breakthroughs reached far beyond his laboratory. Freeing fluorine let chemists study the element directly, and fluorine chemistry grew into a huge field: at least 600,000 fluorine-containing compounds are now known, including refrigerants, the nonstick plastic Teflon and many medicines. About one in five modern drugs contains fluorine, among them the cholesterol drug atorvastatin and the antidepressant fluoxetine. Most of these products are made from hydrogen fluoride rather than from fluorine gas, so his part in them is indirect. His own method matters most where the gas itself is needed. Industry still makes at least 17,000 tonnes of fluorine a year by electrolysis of the same kind of potassium fluoride and hydrogen fluoride mixture. Its largest use is making uranium hexafluoride, the gas used to enrich uranium for most of the roughly 500 commercial power reactors now operating or being built. Another big use is sulfur hexafluoride, a gas he discovered with Paul Lebeau, which insulates high-voltage equipment on electricity grids. Fluorine compounds also help make electronics. His electric furnace opened the field of high-temperature chemistry. It let chemists prepare pure metals that were very hard to melt and many new carbides, including tungsten carbide, a tough material for cutting tools. His work on calcium carbide, done independently of T. L. Willson in the same year, helped open acetylene chemistry, used for gas lighting and oxyacetylene welding. He was also a devoted teacher. The applied-chemistry laboratory he directed in Paris became an institute in 1901 and, in 1948, the National School of Chemistry of Paris.
- His electrolysis method is still how industry makes fluorine gas, at least 17,000 tonnes a year.[13]
- The largest use of that fluorine is making uranium hexafluoride, the gas needed to enrich uranium for most of the roughly 500 commercial power reactors now operating or being built.[13],[21],[22]
- At least 600,000 fluorine-containing compounds are known today, from refrigerants to Teflon, and about 20% of modern medicines contain fluorine.[6],[13]
- His furnace reached about 3,500 degrees Celsius, letting chemists make new carbides and pure ingots of tungsten, molybdenum and titanium; carbides such as tungsten carbide became tough tool materials.[2],[3],[6]
- His calcium carbide work helped open acetylene chemistry, which was soon used for gas lighting and oxyacetylene welding.[8],[12],[18]
- The Paris applied-chemistry laboratory he directed from 1899 became an institute in 1901 and, in 1948, the National School of Chemistry of Paris.[8]
Impact in numbers
Moissan's legacy is mostly tools and knowledge rather than countable lives. Freeing fluorine opened a branch of chemistry that now includes at least 600,000 compounds, and his electrolysis is still how the world makes fluorine gas. His furnace launched high-temperature chemistry, leading to pure refractory metals, carbides for cutting tools and acetylene for welding. Most of this cannot honestly be turned into a number credited to him: most fluorine products are made from hydrogen fluoride, and industrial arc furnaces for steel came from others, such as William Siemens and Paul Héroult. We quantify only three narrow links through his fluorine gas, with deliberately small shares: air-pollution deaths avoided by nuclear power that runs on enriched uranium (0.2%), deaths from the 1945 atomic bombings, since the Hiroshima bomb's uranium was partly enriched as uranium hexafluoride (0.05% of Hiroshima's deaths, none of Nagasaki's), and the warming effect of sulfur hexafluoride, the gas he discovered (1%). All three are rough, low-confidence estimates.
Fundamental scienceTechnologyEnergyEnvironment
Each number is the laureate’s credited share of a real-world outcome, cumulative to 2025. The whole outcome, the share of credit, and the reasoning are shown so you can check the arithmetic. Outcomes shared with other laureates are counted once on the impact page.
- Low confidenceRippleModeledEnergy
Air-pollution deaths prevented by nuclear power replacing fossil fuels
3,680–6,120
lives saved, credited share
That is 0.2% of 1.8–3.1 million lives saved since 1971.
How this number was built
Same outcome range as the Bohr profile. Kharecha and Hansen's NASA brief estimates that nuclear power averted more than 1.8 million net deaths from 1971 to 2009 (1.84 million in the paper; low) and about 76,000 a year in 2000-2009; extending that rate over 2010-2025 adds 16 x 76,000 = 1.22 million, so high = 3.06 million. Share 0.002: most of the roughly 500 power reactors operating or being built need enriched uranium, enrichment needs uranium hexafluoride, and UF6 is made by reacting UF4 with fluorine gas, which industry still makes by Moissan's electrolysis. But fission physics, reactor engineering and enrichment technology carry nearly all the credit, natural-uranium reactors such as Candu need no enrichment, and someone else would likely have isolated fluorine within years. Result: about 3,700-6,100 lives credited.[13],[21],[22],[23]
Sources: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Internet Archive copy); World Nuclear Association; World Nuclear Association; Wikipedia
- HarmLow confidenceRippleSourced totalPeace
Deaths from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki within two to four months
45–74
deaths caused, credited share
That is 0.03% of 150,000–246,000 deaths caused since 1945.
How this number was built
RERF estimates acute deaths within two to four months at 90,000-166,000 in Hiroshima and 60,000-80,000 in Nagasaki, so 150,000-246,000 (the same range as the Bohr, Bloch and Rotblat profiles; later cancer deaths excluded). Share 0.0003: the Manhattan Project used vast amounts of fluorine gas to make uranium hexafluoride; its K-25 diffusion plant enriched UF6 and sent the product to the Y-12 calutrons, whose uranium-235 went into the Hiroshima bomb. The Nagasaki plutonium bomb did not depend on his fluorine gas, so we credit 0.05% of Hiroshima's deaths only (Hiroshima is about 60-67% of the total, giving 0.0003 of the whole). Moissan died in 1907, decades before fission was found; the bomb builders and the decision to use the bombs carry nearly all responsibility. Result: about 45-75 deaths credited.[13],[24],[25],[26],[27]
Sources: Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF); Wikipedia; U.S. Department of Energy, Office of History and Heritage Resources (OSTI); U.S. Department of Energy, Office of History and Heritage Resources (OSTI); Atomic Heritage Foundation, National Museum of Nuclear Science & History
- HarmLow confidenceRippleModeledEnvironment
Greenhouse warming from sulfur hexafluoride released into the atmosphere, in CO2-equivalent tonnes
70–78
million t CO₂e caused, credited share
That is 1% of 7–7.8 billion t CO₂e of emissions caused since 1955.
How this number was built
Harm, not emissions avoided. NOAA's 2025 global mean SF6 is 12.24 parts per trillion, and NOAA says losses are negligible, so the air holds roughly all SF6 ever emitted. Air: 5.1e18 kg / 28.97 g per mol = 1.76e20 mol (NASA). SF6: 12.24e-12 x 1.76e20 = 2.15e9 mol x 146 g = about 315,000 tonnes. At EPA's 100-year factor of 23,500: about 7.4 billion tCO2e. Range 7.0-7.8 billion (plus or minus 5% for rounding and calibration). Share 0.01: he and Paul Lebeau first made SF6 in 1901, and it is still made from sulfur and his fluorine gas, but others chose it for grid switchgear from the 1950s and allowed the leaks, its climate effect was unknown to him, and others would likely soon have made it. Result: about 70-78 million tCO2e.[12],[17],[28],[29],[30]
Sources: NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory; NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Electric Power Systems Partnership; Wikipedia; Wikipedia
The double edge
Moissan's work was not designed to harm anyone, but fluorine cuts both ways. Large-scale production of fluorine gas began in World War II, when the Manhattan Project needed vast amounts of it to turn uranium into uranium hexafluoride for enrichment, part of the chain that produced the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Sulfur hexafluoride, a gas he discovered with Paul Lebeau, became a workhorse of electricity grids, and it is also the most potent greenhouse gas known; leaks have been building up in the air since the 1950s. The wider fluorine industry, which grew from the field he opened, also produced ozone-damaging CFC refrigerants and chemicals that linger in the environment, although these are made mostly from hydrogen fluoride rather than his fluorine gas. His claim to have made diamonds was never confirmed. The work also took a personal toll: he suffered severe fluorine poisoning, and some historians think years of breathing fluorine and carbon monoxide helped bring on his death at 54.
- Moderate
Fluorine for the first atomic bomb
Large-scale fluorine production began in World War II. The Manhattan Project consumed vast amounts to turn uranium into uranium hexafluoride for enrichment. Its K-25 gaseous diffusion plant sent partly enriched uranium to the Y-12 calutrons, whose uranium-235 went to Los Alamos; the Hiroshima bomb was a uranium bomb. Germany used fluorine to make chlorine trifluoride, a planned incendiary.[13],[25],[26],[27]
- Moderate
Sulfur hexafluoride, the most potent greenhouse gas
Moissan and Paul Lebeau first made SF6 in 1901, and it is still made from sulfur and fluorine gas. U.S. power grids have used it in switchgear since the 1950s. The EPA says it traps heat 23,500 times as well as carbon dioxide over 100 years and lasts over 1,000 years in the air. NOAA measured a global average of 12.24 parts per trillion in 2025, still rising.[12],[13],[17],[28],[29]
- Minor
The wider fluorine industry's pollution
The fluorine chemistry his work opened up later produced CFC refrigerants, restricted by the 1987 Montreal Protocol because they destroy ozone, as well as potent fluorinated greenhouse gases and very persistent organofluorine compounds. These are made mainly from hydrogen fluoride, known long before him, so his link to them is indirect.[6],[13]
- Minor
Diamonds that probably were not
In 1893 he announced tiny diamonds made in his furnace, and the 1906 prize speech repeated the claim. A few people claimed to repeat it, but none could do so reliably; after decades of trying, Charles Parsons concluded in 1928 that no one, Moissan included, had yet made diamonds. The first reproducible synthesis came in 1953. His find of natural silicon carbide in a meteorite was also doubted at first, because commercial silicon carbide saw blades may have contaminated his samples.[3],[8],[14],[16]
- Minor
A personal toll
Fluorine research had already injured or killed earlier chemists. Moissan suffered severe poisoning episodes, and some historians think years of breathing fluorine and carbon monoxide helped bring on his death at 54, which was officially caused by appendicitis.[6],[7],[12]
Against the odds
Jews in France had been citizens since the Revolution, and Moissan practiced the Catholic faith. There is no record that he personally faced antisemitism, so his story is less about prejudice than about class, war and danger. His father was a railway clerk and his mother a seamstress. The family was too modest to pay for long studies, so in Meaux he got a practical secondary education and was then apprenticed to a clockmaker. The Franco-Prussian War sent the family back to Paris, and at 18 he served in the army during the siege, fighting at Avron in December 1870. Afterward he trained in pharmacy, a path open to students without the baccalauréat, and passed the baccalauréat itself only later, after one failed attempt. Fluorine itself was dangerous: earlier researchers had been injured or killed, and he suffered severe poisoning. Meanwhile antisemitism was rising in France. In 1886, the year he isolated fluorine, Édouard Drumont published La France juive, an antisemitic book that became a best-seller. From 1894 the Dreyfus Affair, in which a Jewish army captain was wrongly convicted of treason, split the country. Dreyfus was cleared in 1906, the year Moissan won the Nobel Prize.
1864
Poverty
His family, a railway clerk and a seamstress, was too modest to afford long studies. He received a practical secondary education in Meaux and was apprenticed to a clockmaker until 1870, then entered pharmacy, a path open to students without the baccalauréat.[8],[9]
1870
War
The Franco-Prussian War forced his family back to Paris. At 18 he was taken into the army during the siege of the city and fought at Avron in December 1870.[8],[9],[12]
1886
Other
Isolating fluorine meant working with hydrogen fluoride, which had injured or killed earlier researchers. Moissan himself suffered severe poisoning episodes, and historians suspect the exposures contributed to his early death.[6],[7]
1894
Other
He lived through a surge of French antisemitism: Drumont's best-selling La France juive (1886) and the Dreyfus Affair (1894-1906), in which a Jewish officer was wrongly convicted of treason. No source shows Moissan was personally targeted.[19],[20]
Jewish background
The Encyclopaedia Judaica says Moissan was born in Paris to a non-Jewish father and a Jewish mother, and JInfo, citing it, gives the same basis. His father was a clerk with the Eastern Railway and his mother, Joséphine Mitel, a seamstress. A French dictionary of Paris science professors, built from archival records, lists his religion as Catholic and does not mention Jewish ancestry. There is no record that he identified as Jewish. He meets this site's standard through his mother, but that rests on reference works, not on published family records.[9],[10],[11],[12],[31]
Key dates
September 28, 1852
Born in Paris, son of a railway clerk and a seamstress.[1],[2],[9]
1864
Family moves to Meaux, where he attends the local college and is later apprenticed to a clockmaker.[8],[9],[12]
1870
The Franco-Prussian War drives the family back to Paris; at 18 he serves in the army during the siege.[8],[9]
February 1871
Begins training as a pharmacist in Paris; the next year he starts studying chemistry in Edmond Frémy's laboratory at the Natural History Museum.[2],[8],[9]
1880
Earns his doctorate in physical sciences and begins teaching at the Paris School of Pharmacy.[2],[8],[9]
June 26, 1886
Isolates fluorine by electrolysis of potassium fluoride dissolved in liquid hydrogen fluoride.[7],[8],[12],[13]
June 8, 1891
December 12, 1892
Describes his electric arc furnace to the Academy of Sciences; others, such as Paul Héroult, later built arc furnaces for steelmaking.[8],[32]
1893
Announces tiny synthetic diamonds, a claim never confirmed, and begins studying the Canyon Diablo meteorite, in which he later identifies natural silicon carbide.[8],[14],[15]
1900
Becomes professor of inorganic chemistry at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Paris (the Sorbonne).[2],[9]
1901
With Paul Lebeau, makes sulfur hexafluoride for the first time.[12],[17]
December 10, 1906
Receives the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for isolating fluorine and for his electric furnace, after 41 nominations since 1901.[1],[3],[4],[6],[33]
February 20, 1907
Dies suddenly in Paris at 54, after appendicitis, two months after the prize ceremony. He never gave a Nobel lecture.[2],[5],[6]
August 10, 1914
His only son, Louis, a chemist and reserve infantry officer, is killed in World War I.[8]
Sources
- 1.Henri Moissan - Facts · NobelPrize.org (Nobel Prize Outreach)
- 2.Henri Moissan - Biographical · NobelPrize.org (from Nobel Lectures, Chemistry 1901-1921, Elsevier, 1966), 1966
- 3.The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1906 - Presentation Speech by Professor P. Klason, 10 December 1906 · NobelPrize.org, 1906
- 4.Henri Moissan - Nominations · NobelPrize.org
- 5.Henri Moissan - Nobel Lecture (page noting that he did not deliver one) · NobelPrize.org
- 6.1906 Chemistry Nobelist Henri Moissan Spawned The Vast Arena Of Fluorine Chemistry, by Ivan Amato · Chemical & Engineering News (American Chemical Society), vol. 84, issue 47, 2006
- 7.The discovery of fluorine, by Richard Toon (Education in Chemistry) · Royal Society of Chemistry, 2011
- 8.Ferdinand Frédéric Henri Moissan: The first French Nobel Prize winner in chemistry or nec pluribus impar, by Ioana Fechete (Comptes Rendus Chimie 19: 1027-1032) · Académie des sciences / Comptes Rendus Chimie, 2016
- 9.83. Moissan (Henri), in Les Professeurs de la faculté des sciences de Paris, 1901-1939: Dictionnaire biographique, by Christophe Charle and Eva Telkès · Institut national de recherche pédagogique (via Persée), 1989
- 10.Moissan, Henri (Encyclopaedia Judaica entry by Samuel Aaron Miller) · Encyclopedia.com
- 11.Jewish Nobel Prize Winners in Chemistry (note 2 on Moissan) · JINFO.ORG
- 12.Henri Moissan · Wikipedia
- 13.Fluorine · Wikipedia
- 14.Synthetic diamond (history section) · Wikipedia
- 15.Moissanite · Wikipedia
- 16.Silicon carbide · Wikipedia
- 17.Sulfur hexafluoride · Wikipedia
- 18.Calcium carbide · Wikipedia
- 19.France: Virtual Jewish History Tour · Jewish Virtual Library (American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise)
- 20.Dreyfus affair · Wikipedia
- 21.Conversion and Deconversion · World Nuclear Association
- 22.Uranium Enrichment · World Nuclear Association
- 23.Coal and Gas are Far More Harmful than Nuclear Power, by Pushker Kharecha and James Hansen (Science Brief, April 2013) · NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Internet Archive copy), 2013
- 24.Frequently Asked Questions: How many people died as a result of the atomic bombings? · Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF)
- 25.The Manhattan Project: An Interactive History - Gaseous Diffusion · U.S. Department of Energy, Office of History and Heritage Resources (OSTI)
- 26.The Manhattan Project: An Interactive History - Electromagnetic Separation · U.S. Department of Energy, Office of History and Heritage Resources (OSTI)
- 27.Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 1945 · Atomic Heritage Foundation, National Museum of Nuclear Science & History
- 28.Sulfur Hexafluoride (SF6) Basics · U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Electric Power Systems Partnership
- 29.Trends in Atmospheric Sulfur Hexafluoride (SF6), with globally averaged annual mean data · NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory
- 30.Earth Fact Sheet · NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive
- 31.List of Jewish Nobel laureates · Wikipedia
- 32.Electric arc furnace (history section) · Wikipedia
- 33.Nomination Archive: Henri Moissan (nominee in 41 nominations) · NobelPrize.org (Nobel Prize Outreach)
Fact-checked on September 24, 2026 by a separate AI fact-checking pass that re-opened the sources, with 8 corrections made. How we check
Suggest a correction