The discovery and use of boron compounds can be traced back to the earliest ancient Egypt, such as the ancient Egyptian manufacture of glass has been the use of borax as a flux, the ancient alchemists also used borax, but the chemical composition of boric acid until the early 19th century is still a mystery.

In 1808, shortly after discovering potassium by electrolysis, the English chemist David made brown boron by electrolyzing molten diboron trioxide, and in the same year the French chemists Guy Lussac and Thénard made monatomic boron by reducing anhydrous boric acid with potassium metal.

In fact, none of them produced pure elemental boron, and extremely pure boron is almost impossible to obtain. Pureer boron was extracted by Henri Mouissant in 1892. Eventually, E. Weintraub of the United States produced perfectly pure boron by igniting a mixture of boron chloride vapor and hydrogen. The boron obtained from this substance was found to be very different in character from previous reports.