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Which chemist identified molybdenum as a separate element in 1778?
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The Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele identified molybdenum as a separate element in 1778.12
He achieved this by treating the mineral molybdenite—which had long been confused with graphite or lead ore—with concentrated nitric acid to produce molybdic oxide. While Scheele demonstrated that the mineral contained a previously unknown metal, it was another Swedish chemist, Peter Jacob Hjelm, who successfully isolated the metallic element in 1781 at Scheele's suggestion.12