A Brief History Of Molybdenum's Discovery

Although molybdenum was discovered in the late 18th century, it was already in use before its discovery, for example, in the 14th century, steel containing molybdenum was used to make sabers in Japan. in the 16th century, molybdenum pyroxene, because of its similarity in appearance and properties to lead, galena and graphite, was used as graphite, and Europeans at the time collectively referred to these ores as " molybdenite".
In 1754, the Swedish chemist BengtAnderssonQvist tested molybdenite and found that it did not contain lead, thus he believed that molybdenite and galena were not the same substance.

In 1778, the Swedish chemist Scherer found that nitric acid did not react with graphite, but reacted with molybdenite to obtain a white powder, which was boiled with an alkali solution and crystallized into a salt. He thought that this white powder was a metal oxide, mixed with charcoal after strong heat, and did not get the metal, but when it was heated with sulfur together but got the original molybdenite, so he thought that molybdenite should be a kind of unknown element of the mineral.
According to Scherer's inspiration, in 1781, the Swede Järm used the "carbon reduction method" to isolate a new metal from this white powder, and named the metal "Molybdenum".