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Portrait of Phosphorus

Science · Chemistry

Phosphorus

1669

Chemistry — non-metals

Phosphorus is element 15, and the first element in history whose discoverer is known by name. In 1669 the Hamburg alchemist Hennig Brand, boiling down vats of urine in search of the philosopher's stone, was left instead with a waxy white solid that glowed in the dark and burst into flame in air. He called it phosphorus, "light-bearer", after the Greek name for the morning star. It exists in several allotropes — white, red, violet and black — is the P of DNA's backbone and of ATP, and remains an irreplaceable fertiliser element.

How to spot them

  • ▸The first element discovered by a named individual, in 1669
  • ▸Isolated by boiling down human urine in search of the philosopher's stone
  • ▸Its white form glows in the dark and ignites spontaneously in air
  • ▸Its Greek name means 'light-bearer', an old name for the morning star
  • ▸The backbone of DNA, the energy currency of ATP, and the heads of matches

Key facts

Discovered in 1669 by a Hamburg alchemist boiling down vats of urine (1669)

Hennig Brand was hunting the philosopher's stone and got a glowing white wax instead

The first element whose discoverer is known by name

Everything found before it — gold, copper, sulfur, lead — came out of prehistory anonymous

Its name is Greek for 'light-bearer', an old name for the morning star

From phos, light, and phoros, bearer — Venus as the morning star

Element 15, whose white allotrope ignites spontaneously in air at about 30 °C

It is stored under water; the red allotrope is stable and coats the striking strip of a matchbox

Joseph Wright of Derby painted its discovery as a kneeling alchemist bathed in glow (1771)

'The Alchymist, in Search of the Philosopher's Stone, Discovers Phosphorus'

Necrosis of the jaw among Victorian match-factory workers was named for it

'Phossy jaw'; a grievance behind the 1888 matchgirls' strike at Bryant & May

Key ideas

  • White phosphorus glows because it is slowly oxidised by air — chemiluminescence, not phosphorescence, despite the word being coined from it
  • It is the only one of the main elements of life with no gaseous form, so its cycle runs through rock and water rather than the atmosphere

Quick-fire facts

  • •Atomic number 15, symbol P; discovered by Hennig Brand in Hamburg in 1669, the only element first isolated from human urine
  • •Brand is said to have boiled down several thousand litres of urine to obtain a few dozen grams
  • •Allotropes include white (waxy, toxic, glowing, pyrophoric), red (stable, used on matchboxes), violet and black (the most stable, and a semiconductor)
  • •White phosphorus was the original match head; its use in matches was banned by the 1906 Berne Convention after 'phossy jaw' destroyed workers' jawbones
  • •Phosphates form the sugar-phosphate backbone of DNA and RNA, the phosphate groups of ATP, and the mineral of bone, hydroxyapatite
  • •About nine tenths of mined phosphate rock goes to fertiliser; Morocco and Western Sahara hold most of the world's reserves
  • •Superphosphate fertiliser was patented by John Bennet Lawes, founder of Rothamsted, in 1842
  • •Phosphorus runoff drives eutrophication — algal blooms and oxygen-starved lakes and coastal dead zones
  • •Antoine Lavoisier listed it among the elements in 1777; the word 'phosphorescence' was coined from its glow, although that glow is in fact chemiluminescence

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