bromine (Br)Article Free Pass Bromine was discovered in 1826 by
the French chemist Antoine-Jérôme Balard in the residues
(bitterns) from the manufacture of sea salt at Montpellier. He
liberated the element by passing chlorine through an aqueous
solution of the residues, which contained magnesium bromide.
Distillation of the material with manganese dioxide and sulfuric
acid produced red vapours, which condensed to a dark liquid. The
similarity of this procedure to that for making chlorine
suggested to Balard that he had obtained a new element similar
to chlorine. (The German chemist Justus von Liebig appears to
have obtained the element before Balard, but he wrongly
considered it to be iodine chloride.) Because of the bad odour
of the element, the French Academy of Sciences suggested the
name bromine, from the Greek word bromos, meaning “bad smell” or
“stench.” Occurrence and distribution A rare element, bromine is
found in nature dispersed throughout Earth’s crust only in
compounds as soluble and insoluble br