Karl Friedrich Plattner

His father, though only a poor working miner, found the means to have him educated first at the Bergschule (mining school) and then at the Bergakademie of Freiberg.

Having taken up the idea of quantitative mouth blowpipe assaying, which was then almost unknown, he succeeded in devising dependable methods for all the ordinary useful metals.

He also devoted himself to the improvement of qualitative blowpipe analysis, and summed up his experience in a treatise Die Probierkunst mit dem Löthrohr (1835), which became a standard authority.

Two years later he was deputed to complete a course of lectures on metallurgy at the Bergakademie in place of W. A. Lampadius (1772–1842), whom he subsequently succeeded as professor.

[1] In addition to many memoirs on metallurgical subjects he also published Die metallurgischen Rostprocesse theoretisch betrachtet, and posthumously Vorlesungen über allgemeine Hüttenkunde.