Discovery of Cobalt

Since ancient times cobalt compounds have been used to produce blue glass and ceramics.

The element was first isolated by Swedish chemist George Brandt in 1735. He showed it was the presence of the element cobalt that caused the blue color in glass, not bismuth as previously thought.

In about 1741 he wrote, “As there are six kinds of metals, so I have also shown with reliable experiments… that there are also six kinds of half-metals: a new half-metal, namely cobalt regulus in addition to mercury, bismuth, zinc, and the reguluses of antimony and arsenic.”

The word cobalt is derived from the German ‘kobold’, meaning goblin or elf.