Klaproth was born in Wernigerode, Germany, on December 1, 1743. The most significant event in his young life was a fire that destroyed the family home when he was eight years old. Suddenly impoverished by the disaster, the Klaproth family was unable to pay for Martin's formal education. Instead, he was apprenticed to an apothecary (pharmacist) in nearby Quedlinburg at the age of 15.
In later years, he moved on to other apothecaries in Hanover, Berlin, Danzig, and back to Berlin. Along the way, he became interested in chemistry and began educating himself. His last stop on this series of journeys was at the famous Schwanenapotheke pharmaceutical-chemistry laboratory owned by the Rose family in Berlin. There he studied briefly under Valentin Rose. When Rose died in 1771, Klaproth became director of the laboratory and took responsibility for raising Rose's two sons. In 1780, Klaproth set up his own chemistry laboratory and, seven years later, gave up his career in pharmacy to devote himself full time to chemical research.
Klaproth made three important contributions in the field of chemistry. First, he was instrumental in promoting Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier's new anti-phlogistic theories of chemistry. Klaproth's acceptance of these ideas required some courage since they conflicted with the older theory of phlogiston that had been proposed by his own countryman, Georg Stahl (1660-1734), in the late seventeenth century. After repeating Lavoisier's experiments, however, Klaproth was convinced that Lavoisier was correct. His own activities on behalf of Lavoisier's ideas were instrumental in convincing his German colleagues to adopt the new "French Chemistry."
Klaproth's second achievement was his role in the creation of analytical chemistry. Along with Joseph Louis Proust, Nicholas Louis Vauquelin and William Hyde Wollaston, he developed techniques and established principles that are now standard in the field of analysis. He emphasized, for example, the importance of drying or igniting precipitates to constant weight in an analysis.
Finally, Klaproth was involved in the discovery of at least a half dozen new elements. In 1789, for example, he obtained from the ore pitchblende a yellow compound that he thought contained a new element. A colleague suggested that he name the element klaprothium. However, the discoverer preferred the name uranium, after the planet Uranus that had been discovered eight years earlier. In the same year, Klaproth also isolated from the gemstone zircon a new element which he called zirconium.
Over the next decade, Klaproth also confirmed the discoveries of strontium, titanium, tellurium, and cerium. In addition, he carried out important original research on the rare earth elements.
In 1810, at the age of 67, Klaproth was offered a position as the first professor of chemistry at the new University of Berlin. He accepted the appointment and remained at the university until his death on January 1, 1817.
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