sv:Generalstabens litografiska anstalt · Public domain

Isolated elemental fluorine in 1886 after decades of failed and sometimes fatal attempts by other chemists — several of his predecessors were blinded or killed handling the gas. He won the 1906 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the achievement, months before his own death. Moissan also built one of the first practical electric arc furnaces and, believing he had synthesized diamonds inside it, instead unknowingly created a mineral that would later be named moissanite in his honor.