Discovery of Uranium

In ancient times uranium oxide was used to produce yellow colored ceramic glazes.

Uranium was formally discovered in 1789, in Berlin, Germany by Martin Heinrich Klaproth.

Klaproth was studying the mineral pitchblende, which was then believed to be a zinc/iron ore.

Klaproth dissolved pitchblende in nitric acid, then added potash to obtain a yellow precipitate. Adding excess potash dissolved the yellow precipitate. Such reactions were not characteristic of any known element and Klaproth concluded he had discovered a new element.

He named it after the recently discovered planet Uranus.

In 1841, French chemist Eugene-Melchior Peligot isolated uranium metal by heating uranium tetrachloride with potassium.