4. Antoine-Jérôme Balard discovered bromine while
investigating some salty water from Montpellier, France. He
took the concentrated residue which remained after most of
the brine had evaporated and passed chlorine gas into it. In
so doing he liberated an orange-red liquid which he deduced
was a new element. He sent an account of his findings to the
French Academy’s journal in 1826.
A year earlier, a student at Heidelberg, Carl Löwig, had
brought his professor a sample of bromine which he had
produced from the waters of a natural spring near his home
at Keruznach. He was asked to produce more of it, and while
he was doing so Balard published his results and so became
known at its discoverer.
5. Bromine is the twenty-fifth element in order of abundance in
Nature. It is so chemically active that it never occurs free in
Nature, but always found as a halide. Except for same rather
rare silver salts, no natural mineral contains bromine as an
essential constituent. There are salt deposits or brines in
various parts of the world where bromine has been
concentrated by evaporation of water from prehistoric seas
or salt lakes. Average ocean water contains 67 mg of
bromine per liter, and is the major source of this element.
The major world producers of bromine are the United States,
Israel and Germany.
6. The greatest use of bromine is in the manufacture of ethylene
bromide which enters in antiknock fluids for motor fuels. Lesser
amounts of bromine are used to prepare a great variety of other
organic and inorganic compounds. Bromine is an excellent
bleaching and sanitizing agent and, as a liquid, is used as a
reagent for analytical and synthetic purposes. The pure cesium
bromide so obtained has been used in manufacturing optical
prisms which are highly transparent to infrared radiation.
The bromides of the alkali and alkaline earth elements find
usage in pharmacy because of their sedative actions, in
photography for preparing silver bromide emulsions, and in the
industrial drying of air as desiccants.
The major use for methyl bromide lies in the extermination of
insect and rodent pests. Bromochloromethane and
bromodifluoromethane are used as fire-extinguisher fluids.
7. Liquid and gaseous bromine presents a serious health
hazard. The liquid rapidly attacks the skin and other tissues
to produce irritation and necrosis. Exposure to vapors can
cause painful irritation to the eyes and inflammation of the
respiratory tract. The maximum concentration which is
considered safe for an eight-hour exposure is less than 1
PPM. Plants for the manufacture or use of bromine should
be designed to provide maximum safety precautions and
good ventilation. Many bromine compounds have important
physiological applications and are therefore employed in
Medicine as sedatives, anesthetics and antiseptics.
