German chemist who was unfortunately an inept experimentalist. Despite this challenge, he performed experiments supporting the radical theory. He isolated a foul smelling compound which he named cacodyl oxide and a whole series of related compounds. Unfortunately, the substance also turned out to be highly explosive, and Bunsen accidentally blew up his lab and was laid up in bed for a long time. This put an end to his organic researches. He also perfected the Bunsen burner which had been invented by Faraday and developed the process of emission spectroscopy with heated elements with Kirchhoff.

Faraday, Kirchhoff

Additional biographies: Bonn