Ferdinand Frédéric Henri Moissan was born in Paris in 1852 to a family of modest means. He was attracted into the laboratories of Edmond Fremy's School of Experimental Chemistry at the Paris Museum of Natural History. There he engaged in research, supported himself by tutoring, and finished the courses needed for his degree. He received the baccalaureate in 1874, and thereafter a series of higher degrees: license (B.S.) in 1877, pharmacist first-class in 1879, and a doctorate in 1880.

Although his earlier research had been in the chemistry of plant respiration, his doctoral dissertation dealt with pyrophoric iron and various oxides of that metal. He was interested only in inorganic chemistry, and this was the direction he would take for the rest of his career. In the course of this research he also concerned himself with chromium salts, and he developed a process for the preparation of pure...