Eberhard Sass

Eberhard Heinrich Sass (April 11, 1785 – January 21, 1859) was a Yonderian professor of physics and chemistry, best known for his discovery of the world's first known near-pure aluminium, being the first person to successfully produce aluminium in its metallic state, albeit in a less-than-pure form.

Sass led a long and successful career as a professor at the University of Collinebourg before retiring in 1851. A leading scientific figure of the Yonderian Golden Age, his work inspired that of subsequent scientists like Rachet d'Everard.

Biography
Eberhard Heinrich Sass was born in 1785 as the second son of apothecary Sören Sass and his wife Ingrid (née Pättling). Due to his father's wealth, Sass received an expensive education at the university-adjacent Collinebourg School of Excellency from the age of six. As a young boy he developed an interest in science while working for his father. Eberhard Sass and his older brother Killian both excelled academically and were accepted into the University of Collinebourg simultaneously in 1803, although Killian was killed in a duel with a fellow student during their first year at the university. Eberhard otherwise excelled during his scholarship, studying physics and chemistry. Graduating with a doctorate in chemistry, Sass soon took up a lectorate at the University of Collinebourg.

In 1808, Bergendii Dr. Eviand-Marceaux Rexard d'Estac had predicted the existence of the metal which he gave the name of alumium. However his attempts to isolate it using electrolysis processes were unsuccessful; the closest he came was an aluminium-iron alloy. Sass succeeded in isolating the metallic form by reacting aluminium chloride with potassium amalgam (an alloy of potassium and mercury) and then boiling away the mercury, which left small "chunks" of metal that he described as appearing similar to tin. He presented his results and a sample of the metal at meetings of the University of Collinebourg in early 1826, but otherwise appears to have considered his discovery to be of limited importance.

This ambivalence, coupled with the limited audience for the University of Collinebourg's journal in which the results had been published, meant that the discovery went mostly unnoticed by the wider scientific community at the time. Busy with other work, it was not until 1845 that Sass once again worked on aluminium, isolating a quantity of solid metal sufficient for him to describe some of its physical properties.

Sass retired to Gabion, Vandarcôte County in 1851 and lived out his final days in relative obscurity there.