Johann Wolfgang Dobereiner

Johann Wolfgang Dobereiner (1780 to 1849) was a German chemist who held a professorship of chemistry and pharmacy at the University of Jena. He is remembered in two ways. His grouping of similar elements into sets of three, now called Dobereiner's triads, was an early step toward the periodic law that later chemists completed. In practical technology he invented the first lighter, known as Dobereiner's lamp, a device that used the catalytic action of platinum on hydrogen to produce a flame on demand. The lamp was an early application of catalysis to a consumer product and led to a long line of ignition devices used in homes and laboratories during the nineteenth century.