Phosphorus was discovered by German alchemist Hennig Brand by boiling urine, creating a glowing white paste. It was later refined from bone ash and bird guano. It is used by living cells and found in teeth and bones.
Phosphorus is sometimes referred to as “the devil’s element” because it was the thirteenth element to be discovered. It was isolated by Hennig Brand, a German alchemist who was looking for a method to create the Philosopher’s Stone. His attempt consisted in boiling hundreds of liters of urine, obtaining a small amount of white paste that could glow in the dark and burn very intensely. Hoping he could finally turn the substance into Philosopher’s Stone, Brand kept the recipe a secret for six years before selling it to Daniel Krafft. While Brand is usually credited with discovering phosphorus, it is possible that Arab alchemists had already discovered it centuries earlier, using a similar method.
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Phosphorus was derived from massive amounts of urine before it was discovered that it could also be refined from bone ash and eventually obtained from the guano of birds and bats.
The word phosphorus comes from Greek mythology and means “bringer of light”.
Phosphorus is used by living cells. The average adult contains about 0.7 kg of phosphorus, mainly in teeth and bones.
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