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Robert Bunsen
1811–1899 · Chemist
A German chemist whose name is familiar to every student who has used a Bunsen burner, and who also made important contributions to spectroscopy and photochemistry.
Why is this scientist famous?
Helped develop the improved laboratory gas burner now known as the Bunsen burner and, with Gustav Kirchhoff, developed spectral analysis and discovered the elements caesium and rubidium.
Robert's story
A Young Professor in Göttingen
Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen was born in 1811 in Göttingen, Germany, the youngest of four sons in a well-educated family. His father was a professor of modern languages at the University of Göttingen. Robert grew up in an academic household and showed an early talent for chemistry. He studied at the University of Göttingen, where he earned his doctorate in 1831. After travelling through Germany, France, and Austria to visit laboratories and meet other chemists, he returned to Göttingen. In 1834 he completed his habilitation and began lecturing there as a Privatdozent. He quickly built a reputation as a brilliant experimentalist with a fearless approach to dangerous chemicals. Bunsen's early research included dangerous arsenic-containing compounds known as cacodyl compounds. A laboratory explosion permanently damaged his right eye. The experience showed just how hazardous nineteenth-century chemical research could be.
The Bunsen Burner
In 1852, Bunsen was appointed professor of chemistry at the University of Heidelberg, one of the most prestigious scientific institutions in Germany. He wanted a clean, hot flame for laboratory experiments. Working with laboratory mechanic Peter Desaga, he helped develop an improved gas burner that mixed gas with air before combustion. The resulting design became known as the Bunsen burner and became standard laboratory equipment. Every child who has ever adjusted the air hole on a Bunsen burner to change the flame from orange to blue has used the device. But the burner was just a tool — Bunsen built it to do the science he really cared about: studying what substances are made of by analysing the light they give off when they burn.
Spectroscopy and New Elements
Bunsen noticed that different chemicals produced different colours when heated in a flame — sodium gave a bright yellow, potassium a lilac, calcium a brick red. But distinguishing between similar colours was difficult with the naked eye. Beginning in 1859, Bunsen and physicist Gustav Kirchhoff developed spectral analysis into a powerful method for identifying chemical elements from their characteristic patterns of light. Using this method, Bunsen and Kirchhoff discovered two entirely new elements that no one had ever seen before. In 1860, they detected a bright blue line in the spectrum of a mineral water from Durkheim — a line that belonged to no known element. They named the new element caesium, from the Latin word for sky blue. The following year, they found a dark red line in the same mineral water and named the second new element rubidium, from the Latin word for deepest red. The discovery of two new elements from mineral water was astonishing, and it demonstrated the incredible power of spectral analysis.
A Life of Quiet Generosity
Bunsen was widely admired as a teacher and spent most of his later career at Heidelberg, where many future leading chemists studied with him. He never married. He retired in 1889 and devoted much of his remaining time to geology and mineralogy before dying in Heidelberg in 1899, aged 88. His name remains closely associated with the laboratory burner developed for his work, although spectroscopy and chemical analysis were among his most important scientific contributions.
What did they discover?
The Bunsen Burner
Bunsen and laboratory mechanic Peter Desaga developed an improved laboratory gas burner that produced a clean, hot flame and became known as the Bunsen burner.
Development of Spectral Analysis
With Gustav Kirchhoff, Bunsen developed spectral analysis as a powerful method for identifying elements from the light they emit.
Discovery of Caesium and Rubidium
Using spectral analysis, Bunsen and Kirchhoff discovered two new elements in 1860 and 1861 — caesium (named for its blue spectral line) and rubidium (named for its red line). It was the first time new elements were discovered by their light.
Photochemical Research with Henry Enfield Roscoe
Bunsen collaborated with the physicist Henry Enfield Roscoe on the chemistry of light, measuring how light drives chemical reactions and laying early foundations for photochemistry.
Amazing facts
Bunsen lost the sight in his right eye in a laboratory explosion involving an arsenic compound.
The Bunsen burner became one of the most familiar pieces of laboratory equipment in science classrooms around the world.
He and Kirchhoff discovered caesium and rubidium by analysing the light given off by mineral water from a spa in Durkheim.
Caesium was named after the Latin word for sky blue, and rubidium after the Latin for deepest red — the colours of their spectral lines.
He taught at the University of Heidelberg for thirty-seven years and trained many of Europe's leading chemists.
He never married and spent most of his later career teaching and researching at Heidelberg.
Timeline
Born in Göttingen, Germany
Earned his doctorate at the University of Göttingen
Completed his habilitation and began lecturing at the University of Göttingen
Appointed professor at the University of Marburg
Appointed professor of chemistry at the University of Heidelberg
Helped develop the improved gas burner now known as the Bunsen burner with Peter Desaga
Developed spectral analysis with Gustav Kirchhoff
Co-discovered caesium with Gustav Kirchhoff
Co-discovered rubidium with Gustav Kirchhoff
Awarded the Davy Medal jointly with Gustav Kirchhoff
Died in Heidelberg, aged 88
Awards & honours
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