Editing Carbon dioxide (section)

== History of discovery ==
[[File:Carbon-dioxide-crystal-3D-vdW.png|thumb|left|upright|Crystal structure of [[dry ice]]]]
Carbon dioxide was the first gas to be described as a discrete substance. In about 1640,<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Harris D |date=September 1910 |title=The Pioneer in the Hygiene of Ventilation |url=https://zenodo.org/record/2088803 |url-status=live |journal=The Lancet |volume=176 |issue=4542 |pages=906–908 |doi=10.1016/S0140-6736(00)52420-9 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200317181844/https://zenodo.org/record/2088803 |archive-date=17 March 2020 |access-date=6 December 2019}}</ref> the [[Flemish people|Flemish]] chemist [[Jan Baptist van Helmont]] observed that when he burned [[charcoal]] in a closed vessel, the mass of the resulting [[ash (analytical chemistry)|ash]] was much less than that of the original charcoal. His interpretation was that the rest of the charcoal had been transmuted into an invisible substance he termed a "gas" (from Greek "chaos") or "wild spirit" (''spiritus sylvestris'').<ref>{{cite book |title=History of [[industrial gas]]es |vauthors=Almqvist E |date=2003 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-0-306-47277-0 |page=93}}</ref>

The properties of carbon dioxide were further studied in the 1750s by the [[Scotland|Scottish]] physician [[Joseph Black]]. He found that [[limestone]] ([[calcium carbonate]]) could be heated or treated with [[acid]]s to yield a gas he called "fixed air". He observed that the fixed air was denser than air and supported neither flame nor animal life. Black also found that when bubbled through [[limewater]] (a saturated aqueous solution of [[calcium hydroxide]]), it would [[Precipitation (chemistry)|precipitate]] calcium carbonate. He used this phenomenon to illustrate that carbon dioxide is produced by animal respiration and microbial fermentation. In 1772, English chemist [[Joseph Priestley]] published a paper entitled ''Impregnating Water with Fixed Air'' in which he described a process of dripping [[sulfuric acid]] (or ''oil of vitriol'' as Priestley knew it) on chalk in order to produce carbon dioxide, and forcing the gas to dissolve by agitating a bowl of water in contact with the gas.<ref name="Priestley">{{cite journal |author-link1=Joseph Priestley |vauthors=Priestley J, Hey W |year=1772 |title=Observations on Different Kinds of Air |url=http://web.lemoyne.edu/~GIUNTA/priestley.html |url-status=live |journal=Philosophical Transactions |volume=62 |pages=147–264 |doi=10.1098/rstl.1772.0021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100607170541/http://web.lemoyne.edu/%7Egiunta/priestley.html |archive-date=7 June 2010 |access-date=11 October 2007 |s2cid=186210131}}</ref>

Carbon dioxide was first liquefied (at elevated pressures) in 1823 by [[Humphry Davy]] and [[Michael Faraday]].<ref name="Davy">{{cite journal |author-link=Humphry Davy |vauthors=Davy H |year=1823 |title=On the Application of Liquids Formed by the Condensation of Gases as Mechanical Agents |url=https://archive.org/details/jstor-107649 |journal=Philosophical Transactions |volume=113 |pages=199–205 |doi=10.1098/rstl.1823.0020 |jstor=107649 |doi-access=free}}</ref> The earliest description of solid carbon dioxide ([[dry ice]]) was given by the French inventor [[Adrien-Jean-Pierre Thilorier]], who in 1835 opened a pressurized container of liquid carbon dioxide, only to find that the cooling produced by the rapid evaporation of the liquid yielded a "snow" of solid {{CO2}}.<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Thilorier AJ |year=1835 |title=Solidification de l'Acide carbonique |url=http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k29606/f194.item |url-status=live |journal=Comptes Rendus |volume=1 |pages=194–196 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170902172202/http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k29606/f194.item |archive-date=2 September 2017 |access-date=1 September 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Thilorier AJ |year=1836 |title=Solidification of carbonic acid |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4GwqAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA446 |url-status=live |journal=The London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine |volume=8 |issue=48 |pages=446–447 |doi=10.1080/14786443608648911 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160502065711/https://books.google.com/books?id=4GwqAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA446 |archive-date=2 May 2016 |access-date=15 November 2015}}</ref>

Carbon dioxide in combination with nitrogen was known from earlier times as [[Blackdamp]], stythe or choke damp.{{efn|Sometimes spelt "choak-damp" in 19th Century texts.}} Along with the other types of [[damp (mining)|damp]] it was encountered in mining operations and well sinking. Slow oxidation of coal and biological processes replaced the oxygen to create a [[Suffocation|suffocating]] mixture of nitrogen and carbon dioxide.<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/115391 | jstor=115391 | title=Notes of an Enquiry into the Nature and Physiological Action<!--bad matadata--> of Black-Damp, as Met with in Podmore Colliery, Staffordshire, and Lilleshall Colliery, Shropshire | last1=Haldane | first1=John | journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society of London | date=1894 | volume=57 | pages=249–257 | bibcode=1894RSPS...57..249H}}</ref>