| Georg Brandt | |
| Birth Date: | 26 June 1694 |
| Birth Place: | Riddarhyttan, Sweden |
| Death Place: | Stockholm, Sweden |
| Field: | Chemistry, mineralogy |
| Work Institutions: | Uppsala University |
| Known For: | Discovery of cobalt |
Georg Brandt (26 June 1694 – 29 April 1768) was a Swedish chemist and mineralogist who discovered cobalt c. 1735. He was the first person to discover a metal unknown in ancient times. He is also known for exposing fraudulent alchemists operating during his lifetime.[1]
Brandt was born in Riddarhyttan, Skinnskatteberg parish, Västmanland to Jurgen Brandt, a mineowner and pharmacist, and Katarina Ysing. He was professor of chemistry at Uppsala University, and died in Stockholm. He was able to show that cobalt was the source of the blue color in glass, which previously had been attributed to the bismuth found with cobalt. He died on 29 April 1768 of prostate cancer.
About 1741 he wrote: "As there are six kinds of metals, so I have also shown with reliable experiments... that there are also six kinds of half-metals: a new half-metal, namely Cobalt regulus[2] in addition to Mercury, Bismuth, Zinc, and the reguluses of Antimony and Arsenic". He gave six ways to distinguish bismuth and cobalt which were typically found in the same ores: