Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, listed by year of award in ascending order.
1901
Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff
- for his discovery of the laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure in solutions
1902Hermann Emil Fischer
- for his work on sugar and purine syntheses
1903Svante August Arrhenius
- for his electrolytic theory of dissociation (see ion)
1904Sir William Ramsay
- for his discovery of the inert gaseous elements in air
1905Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer
- for his work on organic dyes and hydroaromatic compounds
1906Henri Moissan
- for his investigation and isolation of the element fluorine, and for the electric furnace called after him
1907Eduard Buchner
- for his biochemical researches and his discovery of cell-free fermentation
1908Ernest Rutherford
- for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances
1909Wilhelm Ostwald
- his work on catalysis and for his investigations into chemical equilibria and rates of reaction
1910Otto Wallach
- for his work in the field of alicyclic compounds
1911Marie Sklodowska-Curie
- for her discovery of radium and polonium, and her study of radium
1912Victor Grignard,
Paul Sabatier
- for his the discovery of the Grignard reagent and for his method of hydrogenating organic compounds
1913Alfred Werner
- for his work on the linkage of atoms in molecules
1914Theodore William Richards
- for his determinations of the atomic weight of a large number of elements
1915Richard Martin Willstätter
- for his researches on plant pigments
1918Fritz Haber
- for his synthesis of ammonia
1920Walther Hermann Nernst
- for his work in thermochemistry
1921Frederick Soddy
- for his work on the chemistry of radioactive substances and investigations into isotopes
1922Francis William Aston
- for his discovery of isotopes in a large number of non-radioactive elements, and for his whole-number rule
1923Fritz Pregl
- for his invention of the method of micro-analysis of organic substances
1925Richard Adolf Zsigmondy
- for his demonstration of the heterogenous nature of colloid solutions and the methods used
1926 The (Theodor) Svedberg
- for his work on disperse systems
1927Heinrich Otto Wieland
- for his investigations of the bile acids and related substances
1928Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus
- for his research into sterols and their connection with vitamins
1929Arthur Harden, Hans Karl August Simon von Euler-Chelpin
- for their investigations on the fermentation of sugar and fermentative enzymes
1930Hans Fischer
- for his researches into haemin and chlorophyll
1931Carl Bosch,
Friedrich Bergius
- for their contributions to chemical high pressure methods
1932Irving Langmuir
- for his work in surface chemistry
1934Harold Clayton Urey
- for his discovery of heavy hydrogen
1935Frédéric Joliot,
Irene Joliot-Curie
- for their synthesis of new radioactive elements
1936Petrus (Peter) Josephus Wilhelmus Debye
- for his work on molecular structure through investigations on dipole moments and the diffraction of X-rays and electrons in gases
1937Walter Norman Haworth, Paul Karrer
- for his work on carbohydrates and vitamin C and for his work on carotenoids, flavins and vitamins A and B2
1938Richard Kuhn
- for his work on carotenoids and vitamins
1939Adolf Friedrich Johann Butenandt, Leopold Ruzicka
- for his work on sex hormones and for his work on polymethylenes and higher terpenes
1943George de Hevesy
- for his work on the use of isotopes as tracerss to study chemical processes
1944Otto Hahn
- for his discovery of the fission of heavy nuclei
1945Artturi Ilmari Virtanen
- for his research in agricultural and nutrition chemistry
1946James Batcheller Sumner, John Howard Northrop, Wendell Meredith Stanley
- for his discovery that enzymes can be crystallized and for their preparation of enzymes and virus proteins in a pure form
1947Sir Robert Robinson
- for his investigations on plant products, especially the alkaloids
1948Arne Wilhelm Kaurin Tiselius
- for his research on electrophoresis and adsorption analysis
1949William Francis Giauque
- for his contributions in the field of chemical thermodynamics
1950Otto Paul Hermann Diels,
Kurt Alder
- for their discovery and development of the diene synthesis. Diels-Alder reaction.
1951Edwin Mattison McMillan,
Glenn Theodore Seaborg
- for their discoveries in the chemistry of transuranium elements
1952Archer John Porter Martin, Richard Laurence Millington Synge
- for their invention of partition chromatography
1953Hermann Staudinger
- for his discoveries in the field of macromolecular chemistry
1954Linus Carl Pauling
- for his research into the nature of the chemical bond
1955Vincent du Vigneaud
- for his work on sulphur compounds, especially the first synthesis of a polypeptide hormone
1956Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood, Nikolay Nikolaevich Semenov
- for their researches into the mechanism of chemical reactions
1957Lord Alexander R. Todd
- for his work on nucleotides and nucleotide co-enzymes
1958Frederick Sanger
- for his work on the structure of proteins, especially insulin
1959Jaroslav Heyrovsky
- for his discovery and development of the polarographic methods of analysis
1960Willard Frank Libby
- for his method to use carbon-14 for age determination
1961Melvin Calvin
- for his research on carbon dioxide assimilation in plants
1962Max Ferdinand Perutz, John Cowdery Kendrew
- for their studies of the structures of globular proteins
1963Karl Ziegler, Giulio Natta
- for their discoveries relating to high polymers
1964Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
;
for her determinations by X-ray techniques of the structures of important biochemical substances
1965Robert Burns Woodward
- for his achievements in organic synthesis
1966Robert Sanderson Mulliken
- for his work concerning chemical bonds and the electronic structure of molecules
1967Manfred Eigen, Ronald George Wreyford Norrish, George Porter
- for their studies of extremely fast chemical reactions
1968Lars Onsager
- for the discovery of the reciprocal relations bearing his name
1969Derek H. R. Barton, Odd Hassel
- for their contributions to the development of the concept of conformation
1970Luis F. Leloir
- for his discovery of sugar nucleotides and their role in the biosynthesis of carbohydrates
1971Gerhard Herzberg
- for his contributions to electronic structure and the geometry of molecules, particularly free radicals
1972Christian B. Anfinsen, Stanford Moore, William H. Stein
- for his work on ribonuclease and for their contribution to the understanding of the connection between chemical structure and catalytic activity of the ribonuclease molecule
1973Ernst Otto Fischer, Geoffrey Wilkinson
- for their work on the chemistry of organometallic compounds
1974Paul J. Flory
- for his fundamental work, both theoretical and experimental, in the physical chemistry of macromolecules
1975John Warcup Cornforth, Vladimir Prelog
- for his work on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalyzed reactions and for his research into the stereochemistry of organic molecules and reactions
1976William Nunn Lipscomb, Jr
- for his studies on the structure of [[borane]s
1977Ilya Prigogine
- for his contributions to non-equilibrium thermodynamics
1978Peter D. Mitchell
- for his formulation of the chemiosmotic theory
1979Herbert C. Brown, Georg Wittig
- for their development of the use of boron- and phosphorus-containing compounds, respectively, into reagents in organic synthesis
1980Paul Berg,
Walter Gilbert,
Frederick Sanger
- for his studies of the biochemistry of nucleic acids and for their contributions concerning the determination of base sequences in nucleic acids
1981Kenichi Fukui,
Roald Hoffmann
- for their theories concerning the course of chemical reactions
1982Aaron Klug
- for his development of crystallographic electron microscopy
1983Henry Taube
- for his work on the mechanisms of electron transfer reactions
1984Robert Bruce Merrifield
- for his development of methodology for chemical synthesis on a solid matrix
1985Herbert A. Hauptman, Jerome Karle
- for their achievements in developing direct methods for the determination of crystal structures
1986Dudley R. Herschbach,
Yuan T. Lee, John C. Polanyi
- for their contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elementary processes
1987Donald J. Cram, Jean-Marie Lehn, Charles J. Pedersen
- for their development and use of molecules with structure-specific interactions of high selectivity
1988Johann Deisenhofer, Robert Huber, Hartmut Michel
- for their determination of the three-dimensional structure of a photosynthetic reaction centre
1989Sidney Altman, Thomas R. Cech
- for their discovery of catalytic properties of RNA
1990Elias James Corey
- for his development of the theory and methodology of organic synthesis
1991Richard R. Ernst
- for his contributions to the development of high resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy
1992Rudolph A. Marcus
- for his contributions to the theory of electron transfer reactions in chemical systems
1993Kary B. Mullis,
Michael Smith
- for contributions to the developments of methods within DNA-based chemistry
1994George A. Olah
- for his contribution to carbocation chemistry
1995Paul J. Crutzen, Mario J. Molina, F. Sherwood Rowland
- for their work in atmospheric chemistry
1996Robert Curl, Sir
Harold Kroto,
Richard Smalley
- for their discovery of fullerenes
1997Paul D. Boyer, John E. Walker, Jens C. Skou
- for their elucidation of the enzymatic mechanism underlying the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate and for his discovery of an ion-transporting enzyme, Na+K+-ATPase
1998Walter Kohn,
John A. Pople
- for his development of the density-functional theory and for his development of computational methods in quantum chemistry
1999Ahmed H. Zewail
- for his studies of the transition states of chemical reactions using femtosecond spectroscopy
2000Alan J Heeger, Alan G MacDiarmid, Hideki Shirakawa
- for their discovery and development of conductive polymers
2001William S. Knowles,
Ryoji Noyori,
K. Barry Sharpless
- for their work on chirally catalysed hydrogenation reactions and for his work on chirally catalysed oxidation reactions
2002Kurt Wüthrich,
John B. Fenn, Koichi Tanaka
- for their development of methods for identification and structure analyses of biological macromolecules
2003Peter Agre, Roderick MacKinnon
- for discoveries concerning channels in cell membranes
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