Johann Nepomuk von Fuchs

Johann Nepomuk von Fuchs (15 May 1774 – 5 March 1856) was a German chemist and mineralogist, and royal Bavarian privy councillor.

Biography He was born at Mattenzell, near Falkenstein in the Bavarian Forest. In 1807, he became professor of chemistry and mineralogy at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU), which was located in Landshut at the time, and in 1823 conservator of the mineralogical collections at Munich, where he was appointed professor of mineralogy three years later, when the university was relocated. He retired in 1852, was ennobled by the Maximilian II of Bavaria in 1854, and died in Munich on 5 March 1856.

He is largely known for his mineralogical observations and for his work on waterglass (sodium silicate). Also, he developed a scientific method for the production of cement and made contributions to the understanding of the amorphic state of solids.

He coined the mineral names wagnerite (1821) and margarite (1823), and with Adolph Ferdinand Gehlen, was co-describer of the mineral mesolite (1816). A variety of muscovite called fuchsite commemorates his name.