17. Chlorium (Chlorine) - Elementymology & Elements Multidict

Elementymology & Elements Multidict

This site comprises 120 pages of text and photos, one for each element, and several pages for access. – For captions or explanatory texts move your mouse over illustrations, links etc.

17
Chlorium Chlorine
Chloor – Chlor – Chlore – Cloro – 塩素 – Хлор – 氯
Cl
Multilingual dictionary

Indo-European
Chlorium Latin

— Germanic
Chloor Afrikaans
Chlor, Klor Danish
Chlor German
Chlorine English
Klor Faroese
Gloar Frisian (West)
Klór Icelandic
Chlor Luxembourgish
Chloor Dutch
Klor Norwegian
Klor Swedish

— Italic
Cloro Aragonese
Cloru Aromanian
Cloru Asturian
Clor Catalan
Cloro Spanish
Chlore French
Clôr Friulian
Cloro Galician
Cloro Italian
Clòor Lombard
Clòr Occitan
Cloro Portuguese
Clor Romanian - Moldovan

— Slavic
Хлор [Hlor] Bulgarian
Hlor Bosnian
Хлор [hlor] Belarusian
Chlor Czech
Klor Croatian
Chlor Kashubian
Хлор [Hlor] Macedonian
Chlor Polish
Хлор [Hlor] Russian
Chlór Slovak
Klor Slovenian
Хлор [Hlor] Serbian
Хлор [xlor] Ukrainian

— Baltic
Chloras Lithuanian
Hlors Latvian
Chluors Samogitian

— Celtic
Klor Breton
Clorin Welsh
Clóirín Gaelic (Irish)
Clòirin Gaelic (Scottish)
Cloreen Gaelic (Manx)
Cloryn Cornish

— Other Indo-European
Χλωριο [chlōrio] Greek
Քլոր [k'lor] Armenian
Hlor, ²Klori Albanian

— Indo-Iranian/Iranian
Klor Kurdish
Хлор [hlor] Ossetian
Хлор [Hlor] Tajik

— Indo-Iranian/Indo-Aryan
ক্লোরিন [klorina] Bengali
کلر [klr] Persian
ક્લોરિનનો [klorinano] Gujarati
क्लोरीन [klorīna] Hindi

Finno-Ugric
Kloor Estonian
Kloori Finnish
Klór Hungarian
Хлор [Hlor] Komi
Хлор [Hlor] Mari
Клора [klora] Moksha
Kluur Võro

Altaic
Xlor Azerbaijani
Хлор [Hlor] Chuvash
Хлор [xlor] Kazakh
Хлор [Hlor] Kyrgyz
Хлор [hlor] Mongolian
Klor Turkish
خلور گازى [hlor gazi] Uyghur
Xlor Uzbek

Other (Europe)
Kloroa Basque
ქლორი [k'lori] Georgian

Afro-Asiatic
كلور [klūr] Arabic
כלור [chlor] Hebrew
Klorin, ²Kloru Maltese

Sino-Tibetan
Liu̍k (氯) Hakka
塩素 [enso] Japanese
염소 [yeomso] Korean
คลอรีน [khlorīn] Thai
Clo Vietnamese
[lu4 / luk9] Chinese

Malayo-Polynesian
Cloro Cebuano
Klor Indonesian
Hau māota Māori
Klorin, ²Klor Malay

Other Asiatic
ക്ലോറിന്‍ [klōṟrinam] Malayalam
குளோரின் [kuļōriṉ] Tamil

Africa
Koloki Lingala
Klorine Sesotho
Klorini Swahili

North-America
Cloro Nahuatl

South-America
Kluru Quechua

Creole
Krorimi Sranan Tongo

Artificial
Kloro Esperanto

New names
Cloron Atomic Elements
Bleachanium Dorseyville
memory peg

Pale green-yellow gas which smells like bleach
melting point -101 °C; -150 °F
boiling point -35 °C; -30 °F
density 0.0032 g/cc; 0.2 pounds/cubic foot
1774 Carl Wilhelm Scheele, Sweden
χλωρος (chlōros) = light green, green-yellow (Greek)
named by Sir Humphry Davy in 1810

History & Etymology

Carl Wilhelm Scheele Chlorine was discovered in 1774 by the Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele (1742-1786). He produced this element by heating pyrolusite (MnO2) with hydrogen chloride, HCl, an acid first made by alchemists in the fifteenth century and named "muriatic acid" by the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier. Scheele thought that the yellow-green product gas was a compound of oxygen and, believing that the pyrolusite had removed phlogiston from "muriatic acid", Scheele named this air dephlogisticated muriatic acid (also oxygenated muriatic acid, oxymuriatic acid).

Meanwhile Antoine Lavoisier proposed to replace both the four element theory and phlogiston with numerous new elements and a concept of combustion involving a new gaseous element. Lavoisier named the gas responsible for combustion oxygen, meaning acid forming, because all compounds containing oxygen seemed to be acidic. Lavoisier's colleague Claude Berthollet therefore proposed that Scheele's dephlogisticated muratic acid gas must be a combination of oxygen and an undiscovered element, muriaticum.

Louis-Joseph Gay-Lussac (1778-1850) and Louis-Jacques Thénard (1777-1857) tried to decompose dephlogisticated muratic acid gas and did not succeed; they published a report "On the nature and the properties of muriatic acid and of oxygenated muriatic acid" (Mémoires de Physique et de Chimie de la Société d'Arcueil 2, 339-358 (1809) [translated and excerpted in Alembic Club Reprints #13 The Early History of Chlorine], on-line). The authors consider the possibility that it is an element, but are not convinced and conclude:

"In fact, oxygenated muriatic acid is not decomposed by charcoal, and it might be supposed, from this fact and those which are communicated in this Memoir, that this gas is a simple body. The phenomena which it presents can be explained well enough on this hypothesis; we shall not seek to defend it however, as it appears to us that they are still better explained by regarding oxygenated muriatic acid as a compound body."
Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829), in 1810, tried again to do this separation, but was obviously unsuccessful, concluding that it was an element, not a compound. Davy named this new element as chlorine, derived from the Greek χλωρος [chlōros] = light green, green-yellow, because the gas is that colour.
In 1811 he wrote in "On a Combination of Oxymuriatic Gas and Oxygene Gas" (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society vol. 101, pp. 155-162, 1811. [on-line]):
"As the new compound in its purest form is possessed of a bright yellow green colour, it may be expedient to designate it by a name expressive of this circumstance, and its relation to oxymuriatic gas. As I have named that elastic fluid Chlorine, so I venture to propose for this substance the name Euchlorine, or Euchloric gas from ευ and χλωρος. The point of Nomenclature I am not, however, inclined to dwell upon. I shall be content to adopt any name that may be considered as most appropriate by the able chemical philosophers attached to this Society."

Other names
  • Japanese: 塩 = Chinese character for salt, and 素 "so" (normally, plain).

Chemistianity 1873
EBGEN
CHLORINE, an obedient Spirit of the Sea,
Is a yellowish-green gaseous Metalloid,
Of most powerful suffocating odour
Sorely irritating to the eyes and lungs;
When very faint, it smells like stale seaweed:
By exposure to Sunlight, 'tis slowly changed
To Hydrochloric Acid and free Oxygen.
Inhaled in quantum, Chlorine is pois'nous.
J. Carrington Sellars, Chemistianity, 1873, p. 86
Further reading
  • Mary Elvira Weeks, Discovery of the Elements, comp. rev. by Henry M. Leicester (Easton, Pa.: Journal of Chemical Education, 1968), pp. 701-708.
  • Chlorine Chemistry Council, Chlorine: What is it?

Sources Index of Persons Index of Alleged Elements