as 200 BCE.

Modern discoveries

Amorphous elemental silicon was first obtained pure in 1824 by the Swedish chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius; impure silicon had already been obtained in 1811. Crystalline elemental silicon was not prepared until 1854, when it was obtained as a product of electrolysis.

Germanium is one of three elements the existence of which was predicted in 1869 by the