Christian Friedrich Schönbein HFRSE (18 October 1799 – 29 August 1868) was a German-Swiss chemist who is best known for inventing the fuel cell (1838)[1] at the same time as William Robert Grove and his discoveries of guncotton[2] and ozone.

Through his own efforts, he acquired sufficient scientific skills and knowledge to ask for, and receive, an examination by the professor of chemistry at Tübingen.

[7] While doing experiments on the electrolysis of water at the University of Basel, Schönbein first began to notice a distinctive odor in his laboratory.

Nitrocellulose was perceived as a possible "smokeless powder" and a propellant for artillery shells thus it received the name of guncotton.

Later on, in 1891, James Dewar and Frederick Augustus Abel also managed to transform gelatinized guncotton into a safe mixture, called cordite because it could be extruded into long thin cords before being dried.