Name: ______________________________ Section: ______________ Date: _____________

ACTIVITY:
Lavoisier’s Oxygen Theory of Burning ( A Case Study )

Up to the 18th century, people believed that substances which burned readily contained a sort of
spirit, called “phlogiston”, which escaped into the air during burning. This belief, then called the
phlogiston theory of burning, lasted for many years. Joseph Priestley, an English clergyman, and
amateur scientist, believed in it.

In 1774, Priestley, using a lens, focused the sun’s rays on mercuric oxide, a red powder. A strange
gas was formed. He continued experimenting with mercuric oxide and collected the gas that evolved
from it when heated strongly. He observed that a candle burned brightly in the presence of the unknown
gas. And he felt wonderful and light when he inhaled some of the gas. Thus, he described it as perfect
air or very active air.

Sometime later, Priestley visited a friend, Antoine Lavoisier, a brilliant French chemist. He told
Lavoisier his discovery.

Lavoisier pondered over Priestley’s discovery for months. He wondered why the red powder gave
off a gas when heated and how it got the gas in the first place. He asked himself: What really happens
when a substance burns – does it give off something (phlogiston, according to the phlogiston theory of
burning), or does it combine with something from the air? If something is given off, then it would mean a
decrease in mass after burning. If something from the air combines with a substance during burning,
then it would mean an increase in mass after burning. He suspected that the latter was probably the
case. He tested his hypothesis. He reproduced Priestley’s Experiment under more carefully controlled
conditions.

Lavoisier put mercury into a glass vessel and sealed it. He weighed the vessel and its contents,
then applied heat to it. A red powder soon appeared inside the vessel. He weighed the vessel again,
then compared it with that before heating. There was no change in mass. This is expected since the
vessel was sealed. Nothing had entered or escaped from it during the heating.

When Lavoisier broke the glass seal, air rushed into the vessel. This phenomenon indicated that
some of the air in the vessel must have been used up during the heating process and left space for more
air to enter. Lavoisier assumed that part of the air in the vessel must have combined with mercury to
form the red powder.

Lavoisier, however, did not jump into any hasty conclusion. He wanted more proofs. He continued
the investigation but, this time, he reversed the experiment. He put mercuric oxide in a vessel and
heated it to high temperature. He found that (a) the red powder was changed back to mercury, and (b) a
gas was released in the process. This was the same gas which Priestley observed. Lavoisier finally
concluded that this gas, which he called oxygen, combines with combustible materials when they burn.
This is called oxygen theory of burning, which is now the accepted explanation for burning.

GUIDE QUESTIONS:

1.What is the PROBLEM that Lavoisier decided to investigate?

2. State Lavoisier’s HYPOTHESIS (to answer the problem in 1 above) by completing the following
sentence.
If ___________________________________________________________________________
then________________________________________________________________________

3. Which paragraph described the EXPERIMENT that Lavoisier performed to tests his hypothesis? (Give
only the number of the paragraph.)

4. In paragraph 6, why did air rush into the vessel when Lavoisier broke the glass seal?

5. Which paragraph shows Lavoisier’s INTERPRETATION of his OBSERVATION?

6. What CONCLUSION did Lavoisier draw from his investigation?