Per Teodor Cleve
Swedish chemist who discovered holmium and thulium, later a pioneer of diatom and plankton study.
Per Teodor Cleve was a Swedish chemist, biologist, mineralogist and oceanographer, born in Stockholm on 10 February 1840 and died on 18 June 1905. His best-known achievement is the discovery of two chemical elements, holmium and thulium, both in 1879. He also predicted that didymium was really two elements, identified the compounds now called Cleve's acids, and showed that scandium matched an element Dmitri Mendeleev had forecast. In the second half of his career he turned to biology, using fossil diatoms to date glacial deposits and writing an influential work on plankton. He also chaired the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.
Quick Facts
- Born
- 10 February 1840
- Birthplace
- Stockholm, Sweden
- Died
- 18 June 1905
- Place of death
- Uppsala, Sweden
- Fields
- Chemistry, geology
- Education
- Stockholms Lyceum (1858); Uppsala University (1863)
- Known for
- discovery of holmium and thulium
- Spouse
- Carolina Alma Öhbom (1874)
Facts from the source article.
Lore & Background
Cleve was the son of Fredrik Theodor Cleve, a Stockholm merchant whose ancestors had come from western Germany. Drawn to natural science early, he studied chemistry and biology at the Stockholms Lyceum and then at Uppsala University, earning his bachelor's degree in 1863 and his PhD in 1868. He became an assistant professor of chemistry there, taught at the Royal Institute of Technology from 1870 to 1874, and later held the chair of chemistry at Uppsala. During the 1860s he toured laboratories in England, France, Italy and Switzerland, including that of Charles-Adolphe Wurtz in Paris. His early work focused on complex compounds, especially of platinum.
Reader's Guide
Cleve's 1874 theory that didymium contained two elements was confirmed in 1885 when Carl Auer von Welsbach found neodymium and praseodymium. In 1879 he isolated scandium and measured its atomic weight, and while purifying erbium oxide he found holmium oxide and thulium oxide. With Abraham Langlet he found helium in the mineral cleveite in 1895. From 1890 he concentrated on algae, diatoms and plankton, and joined a Swedish expedition to Spitsbergen in 1898. His students included Svante Arrhenius and Ellen Fries.
Did You Know?
- In 1883 he became the first person to describe the plankton species Nitzschia seriata.
- He synthesized several hundred complex platinum compounds.
- His daughter Astrid Maria Cleve became a botanist.
- His son-in-law Hans von Euler-Chelpin and grandson Ulf von Euler both won Nobel Prizes.
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