Christian Adolf Balduin

Christian Adolf Balduin (born June 29, 1632 in Döbeln , † December 1682 in Großenhain ) was a German alchemist .

Life

Christian Adolf was the son of the theologian Balthasar Balduin and his wife Clara Sophia Hahn. He studied law in Leipzig, Wittenberg and Altdorf near Nuremberg . He lived in Regensburg and later as a bailiff in Großenhain in Saxony.

On May 7, 1673 he was accepted into the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina . His academic nickname was Hermes I.

In addition to his work as a bailiff, he was a hobby chemist (alchemist) and is known as the discoverer of a phosphorescent substance called Balduin's phosphorus . He found this in experiments for the production of the Philosopher's Stone or Materia Prima, which he believed to be fleeting and wanted to extract from the air. He converted chalk with nitric acid into calcium nitrate , which is highly hygroscopic and absorbs water (vapor) from the ambient air. He distilled off the water he had taken in, which he called spiritus mundi , and sold it. In doing so, he accidentally discovered the fluorescence of the residue (i.e. the calcium nitrate). He published about it in 1673/74 in the negotiations of the Leopoldina Phosphorus Hermeticus sive Magnes luminaris . At first he kept the production a secret, but Johannes Kunckel elicited it from him and made a profit from the public demonstration, as was the case a little later in the case of phosphorus at Hennig Brand .

He published Hermes curiosus sive inventa physica-chemica in 1682 , and some of his writings are printed in the Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa .

literature

• Alphons Oppenheim:  Baldewein, Christian Adolf . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 3 f.
• Johann Daniel Ferdinand Neigebaur : History of the imperial Leopoldino-Carolinische German academy of natural scientists during the second century of its existence. Friedrich Frommann, Jena 1860, p. 191 .
• Willi Ule : History of the Imperial Leopoldine-Carolinian German Academy of Natural Scientists during the years 1852–1887 . With a look back at the earlier times of its existence. In commission at Wilh. Engelmann in Leipzig, Halle 1889, supplements and additions to Neigebaur's history, p. 148 ( archive.org ).

Web links

• Member entry of Christian Adolph Balduin at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on May 7, 2017.