Schrötter, Anton von

SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology

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b. 26 November 1802 Olmütz, Austria (now Olomouc, Czech Republic)

d. 15 April 1875 Vienna, Austria

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Austrian scientist known particularly for his discovery in 1845 of red phosphorus, which led to the later development of the safety match.

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Anton von Schrötter was the son of an apothecary. At the age of 20 he began his studies at the University of Vienna, first in medicine but later in science and mathematics. He specialized in chemistry and then set up a laboratory in Graz. From 1843 he was a professor of chemistry at the Technische Hochschule in Vienna. Von Schrötter published many papers on various aspects of chemistry, particularly in the field of metallurgy, but it was his demonstration at the Vienna Academy in 1847, which showed that red phosphorus was truly an allotropie form of the element phosphorus, that made him best known. His suggestion that it would be advisable to use such amorphous phosphorus in match manufacture led to Lundström's later development of the safety match and ended the appalling toll that had long been taken on the health of match-factory workers, many of whom had suffered maiming and even death caused by white phosphorus entering the body via defective teeth when they sucked match-heads.

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Principal Honours and Distinctions

Académie Française Prix Montyon 1856. Légion d'Honneur at Paris Exhibition 1855. General Secretary, Vienna Academy of Sciences 1850–75.

Further Reading

Moritz Kohn, 1944, "The discovery of red phosphorus (1847)", Journal of Chemical Education 21.

1975, Dictionary of Science Biography, New York: Charles Scribner.

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