Nils Gabriel Sefström

Nils Gabriel Sefström
Born	2 June 1787(1787-06-02) Ilsbo, Hälsingland, Sweden
Died	30 November 1845(1845-11-30) (aged 58) Stockholm, Sweden
Nationality	Swedish
Doctoral advisor	Jöns Jakob Berzelius
Known for	Rediscovery of vanadium

Nils Gabriel Sefström (2 June 1787 – 30 November 1845) was a Swedish chemist. Sefström was a student of Berzelius and, when studying the brittleness of steel in 1830, he rediscovered a new chemical element, to which he gave the name vanadium.^[1]

Vanadium was first discovered by the Spanish-Mexican mineralogist Andrés Manuel del Río in 1801. He named it erythronium. Friedrich Wöhler later confirmed that vanadium and erythronium were the same substance.^[2]

Sefström was member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences from 1815.

References

1. ^ N. G. Sefström (1831). "Ueber das Vanadin, ein neues Metall, gefunden im Stangeneisen von Eckersholm, einer Eisenhütte, die ihr Erz von Taberg in Småland bezieht". Annalen der Physik und Chemie 97 (1): 43–49. doi:10.1002/andp.18310970103. 
2. ^ Pedro Cintas (2004). "The Road to Chemical Names and Eponyms: Discovery, Priority, and Credit". Angewandte Chemie International Edition 43 (44): 5888–5894. doi:10.1002/anie.200330074. PMID 15376297. 

Further reading

• Sjoberg, Sven Gosta (1951). "Nils Gabriel Sefstrom and the Discovery of Vanadium". Journal of Chemical Education 28 (6): 294–296. doi:10.1021/ed028p294. http://search.jce.divched.org/JCEIndex/FMPro?-db=jceindex.fp5&-lay=wwwform&combo=vanadium&-find=&-format=detail.html&-skip=12&-max=1&-token.2=12&-token.3=10. ^{[dead link]} - subscription required

• Weeks, Mary Elvira (1932). "The Discovery of the Elements: VII. Columbium, Tantalum, and Vanadium". Journal of Chemical Education 9 (5): 863–884. doi:10.1021/ed009p863. http://search.jce.divched.org/JCEIndex/FMPro?-db=jceindex.fp5&-lay=wwwform&combo=vanadium&-find=&-format=detail.html&-skip=14&-max=1&-token.2=14&-token.3=10. ^{[dead link]} - subscription required
• Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon: Sefström, Nils Gabriel - in Swedish

Persondata
Name	Sefstrom
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	2 June 1787
Place of birth	Ilsbo, Hälsingland, Sweden
Date of death	30 November 1845
Place of death	Stockholm, Sweden