In the November of 1776, the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta scientifically identified methane for the first time. Inspired by a paper written by Benjamin Franklin on ‘flammable air,’ Volta collected the gas rising from the marshes of Lake Maggiore that straddles Italy and Switzerland. He succeeded in isolating methane by 1778.
The name ‘methane,’ derived from the word ‘methanol’ was coined years later by the German chemist August Wilhelm von Hofmann in 1866. With the chemical formula, methane is the simplest hydrocarbon containing a single carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms. It is a greenhouse gas available in small quantities in the earth’s atmosphere. A principal component of natural gas, methane is flammable and used as fuel all over the world.
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