Eugène-Melchior Péligot (24 March 1811 – 15 April 1890), also known as Eugène Péligot, was a French chemist who isolated the first sample of uranium metal in 1841. Péligot proved that the black powder of Martin Heinrich Klaproth was not a pure metal (it was an oxide of uranium, known in chemistry as UO2). He then succeeded in producing pure uranium metal by reducing uranium tetrachloride (UCl4) with potassium metal. Today better methods have been found.