Wilhelm Carl Heraeus
1827 - 1904
WILHELM-HERAEUS
The origin of Heraeus dates back to 1851 when
chemist Wilhelm Carl Heraeus started experimenting
with the recycling of platinum wastes from the
Hanauer jeweller industry. From 1889 on, his two
suns reformed their small handcrafted firm "W.C.
Heraeus-Werke" into the precious metals and
technology group Heraeus GmbH which, apart from
their core business in precious metals, was qualified
as the inventor of the high pressure mercury vapour
arc discharge lamp and as a pioneer in tanning
using artificial light sources that produced ultraviolet
light identical to sunlight.
