Fluorine was an extremely vicious compound to be discovered. Because it is a very reactive element,
many chemists were injured and some died before it was isolated.
In the early 1500's, Georgius Agricola, a German scholar, found a mineral know as fluorspar
which came from the Latin word fluere meaning "to flow". Agricola found that fluorspar made
molten metallic ores easier to work with, but did not realize that fluorspar was a mineral of
fluorine.
Flourspar became more and more popular to the early chemists and in 1670 Heinrich Schwanhard,
a German glass cutter, discovered that a certain mixture of fluorspar and acid formed a substance
that could etch glass.
The glass etching lead to further research in the hydrofluoric acid. In 1771, Swedish chemist,
Carl Wilhelm Scheele, started an intense study of the acid and it's composition. One of the goals
was to find ways to break hydrofluoric acid into elements. The new experiments did end up harming
many chemists because of the toxic hydrogen fluoride gas that was inhaled. The experiments then
showed chemists how dangerous this new chemical actually was.
It wasn't until 1888 that the problem was solved. French chemist Henri Moissan made a solution of
hydrofluoric acid in potassium hydrogen fluoride (KHF2) and then cooled the solution to -23 degrees C.
Afterwards, he passed an electric current through it. A pale yellow gas appeared and the name
fluorine was given to it.