The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1906 was awarded to Henri Moissan "in recognition of the great services rendered by him in his investigation and isolation of the element fluorine, and for the adoption in the service of science of the electric furnace called after him".
 

When Lavoisier presented his antiphlogistic system, this system proved in principle so perfect that one could confidently predict that many well-known substances, such as alkalis and alkaline earths, were not elements but oxides of hitherto unknown metals - a theory which Davy, by means of electrolysis, soon after proved to be correct. However, Lavoisier's system was not perfect in every respect. The very prototype of all salts, "common salt" had no place in it. But all efforts to isolate it failed until in 1886 Moissan found the way to an ultimate solution of the problem. So far the most important outcome of this research is that fluorine has now been proved to possess all the qualities previously attributed to it by virtue of its position in the system as a reinforced oxygen. Thus, at ordinary temperature it combines with carbon and silicon, forming gases; it combines with hydrogen at temperatures as low as approximately -230 °C. When hydrogen unites with this element, also, more heat is released than when hydrogen unites with oxygen. Again with his furnace he produced microscopic diamonds by suddenly cooling from a very high temperature a molten pig of iron containing carbon.