Discovery of boron

Boron was isolated in 1808, and French and English chemists were working on it at the same time. In Paris, Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Louis-Jacques Thenard reduced boric acid with potassium to obtain an impure brown powder, while Humphry Davy in London announced similar results using electrolysis. Its compounds had been known and used for much longer: borax, from dried lake beds in Tibet and later elsewhere, was traded for use in glazes and metalworking for many centuries, and its name comes from the Arabic and Persian words for the substance. Pure boron was not prepared until the early twentieth century. Boron is used in heat-resistant borosilicate glass, in fibre composites, in detergents and in control rods that absorb neutrons in nuclear reactors.

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