KARL

FRIEDRICH

See also:

• KARL FRIEDRICH PLATTNER (1800-x858)

PLATTNER (1800-x858)  , German metallurgical chemist, was born at Kleinwaltersdorf, near Freiberg in Saxony, on the 2nd of January, 1800 . ,His father, though only a poor working miner, found the means to have him educated first at the Bergschule and then at. the.Berg'-akademie of Freiberg, and after he had completed his courses there in 182o he obtained• employment, chiefly as assayer, in connexion with the royal mines and metal works . Having taken up the idea of quantitative mouth-blowpipe assaying, which was then almost unknown—except that E Harkort (1797-1835) in 1827, while a student in Freiberg Academy, had worked out a blowpipe assay for silver—he succeeded in devising trustworthy methods for all the ordinary useful metals; in particular his modes of assaying for nickel and cobalt quickly found favour with metallurgists . He also devoted himself to the improvement of qualitative blowpipe analysis; and summed up his experience in a treatise Die'Probierkunst mit dem Lothrohr (1835), which' became a standard authority . In 184o he was made chief of the royal department of assaying . Two years later he was deputed to complete, a course of lectures on metallurgy at the Bergakademie in place of W . A . Lampadius (1772.1842), whom he subsequently succeeded as professor . He died at Freiberg on the 22nd of January 1858 . In addition to many memoirs on metallurgical subjects he also published Die metallurgischen Rostprocesse theoretisch betrachrtet 56), and posthumously Vorlesnngen uber allgemeine Euttenkunde .