became his assistant. While studying the process of electrolysis under Humphry Davy, Michael Faraday discovered two laws of electrolysis. During the time of Maxwell and Faraday, concerns came about for electropositive and electronegative activities. In November 1875, Paul Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran discovered gallium using electrolysis of gallium hydroxide, producing 3.4 mg of gallium. The following December, he presented his discovery of gallium to the Académie des sciences in Paris. On June 26, 1886, Ferdinand Frederick Henri Moissan finally felt comfortable performing electrolysis on anhydrous hydrogen fluoride to create a gaseous fluorine pure element. Before he used hydrogen fluoride, Henri Moissan used fluoride salts with electrolysis. Thus on June 28, 1886, he performed his experiment in front of the Académie des sciences to show his discovery of the new element fluorine. While trying to find elemental fluorine through electrolysis of fluoride salts, many chemists perished including Paulin Louyet and Jérôme Nicklès. In 1886 Charles Martin Hall from America and Paul Héroult from France both filed for American patents for the electrolysis of aluminum, with Héroult submitting his in May, and Hall, in July. Hall was able to get his patent by proving through letters to his brother and family evidence that his method was discovered before the French patent was submitted. This became known as the Hall-Héroult process which benefited many industries because aluminum's price then dropped from four dollars to thirty cents per pound. Timeline 1785 – Martinus van Marum's electrostatic generator was used to reduce tin, zinc, and antimony from their salts using electrolysis. 1800 – William Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle (and also Johann Ritter), decomposed water into hydrogen and oxygen. 1808 – Potassium (1807), sodium (1807), barium, calcium and magnesium were discovered by Humphry Davy using electrolysis. 1821 – Lithium was discovered by the English chemist William Thomas Brande, who obtained it by electrolysis of lithium oxide. 1834 – Michael Faraday published his two laws of electrolysis, provided a mathematical explanation for them, and introduced terminology such as electrode, electrolyte, anode, cathode, anion, and cation. 1875 – Paul Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran discovered gallium using electrolysis. 1886 – Fluorine was discovered by Henri Moissan using electrolysis. 1886 – Hall–Héroult process developed for making aluminium. 1890 – Castner–Kellner process developed for making sodium hydroxide. Overview Electrolysis is the passing of a direct electric current through an electrolyte producing chemical reactions at the electrodes and decomposition of the materials.