Education
University of Göttingen.
University of Göttingen.
Stromeyer received an Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Göttingen in 1800, studying under Johann Friedrich Gmelin and Louis Nicolas Vauquelin. He was then a professor at the university, and also served as an inspector of apothecaries. While studying compounds of zinc, Stromeyer discovered the element cadmium in 1817.
Cadmium is a common impurity of zinc compounds, though often found only in minute quantities.
He was also the first to recommend starch as a reagent for free iodine and he studied chemistry of arsine and bismuthate salts. In 1819 he was the first scientist to describe the mineral eudialyte.
In 1832 the mineral stromeyerite was named in his honor by mineralogist François Sulpice Beudant.
Royal Society; Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Göttingen Academy of Sciences.