Nobel Prize Winners in Chemistry Year Winner(s) Life Dates Nationality Year Awarded For 1901 Jacobus H. Van't Hoff (1852-1911) Dutch Laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure. 1902 Emil Fischer (1852-1919) German Syntheses of sugars and purines. 1903 Svante A. Arrhenius (1859-1927) Swedish Theory of electrolytic dissociation. 1904 Sir William Ramsay (1852-1916) British Discovery of inert gaseous elements. 1905 Adolph von Baeyer (1835-1917) German Work on dyes, notably synthesis of indigo. 1906 Henri Moissan (1852-1907) French Electric furnace; isolation of fluorine. 1907 Eduard Buchner (1860-1917) German Discovery of noncellular fermentation. 1908 Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937) British Decay of elements; chemistry of radioactive substances. 1909 Wilhelm Ostwald (1853-1932) German Work on catalysis, chemical equilibrium, rates of reaction. 1910 Otto Wallach (1847-1931) German Pioneer studies of alicyclic compounds. 1911 Marie Curie (1867-1934) French Discovery of radium and polonium; isolation of metallic radium. 1912 Victor Grignard (1871-1935) French Paul Sabatier (1854-1941) French Discovery of Grignard reagent. Hydrogenation of organic compounds. 1913 Alfred Werner (1866-1919) Swiss Coordination theory of valence; simplified classifying complex inorganic compounds. 1914 Theodore W. Richards (1868-1928) American Determination of many atomic weights. 1915 Richard Willstatter (1872-1942) German Work on coloring matter in plants. 1918 Fritz Haber (1868-1934) German Synthesis of ammonia. 1920 Walther H. Nernst (1864-1941) German Work in thermochemistry. 1921 Frederick Soddy (1877-1956) English Research on isotopes. 1922 Francis W. Aston (1877-1945) English Discovery of many isotopes, using mass spectrograph he invented; whole-number law. 1923 Fritz Pregl (1869-1930) Austrian Microanalysis of organic substances. 1924 no award given. 1925 Richard Zsigmondy (1865-1929) Austrian For his demonstration of the heterogeneous nature of colloid solutions and for the methods he used, which have since become fundamental in modern colloid chemistry. Born in Vienna, Austria on April 1, 1865; died in Göttingen, Austria on September 24, 1929. 1926 Theodor Svedberg (1884-1966) Swedish Work on colloids and on disperse systems. 1927 Heinrich O. Wieland (1877-1957) German Research on bile acids. 1928 Adolf Windaus (1876-1959) German Discovery that ultraviolet rays change ergosterol to vitamin D. 1929 Sir Arthur Harden (1865-1940) English Hans von Euler-Chelpin (1873-1964) Swedish Studies in fermentation of sugar and enzymes involved. 1930 Hans Fischer (1881-1945) German Synthesis of hemin; study of chlorophyll. 1931 Carl Bosch (1874-1940) German Friedrich Bergius (1884-1949) German High-pressure production of ammonia. High-pressure method of converting coal into oil. 1932 Irving Langmuir (1881-1957) American Discoveries in surface chemistry. 1933 no award given. 1934 Harold C. Urey (1893-1981) American Discovery of heavy hydrogen (deuterium). 1935 Frederic Joliot-Curie (1900-58) French Irene Joliot-Curie (1897-1956) French Synthesis of radioactive elements 1936 Peter J.W. Debye (1884-1966) American Work on molecular structure. 1937 Sir Walter N. Haworth (1883-1950) English Paul Karrer (1889-1971) Swiss Work on vitamin C and carbohydrates. Research on carotenoids, flavins, vitamins. 1938 Richard Kuhn (1900-67) Austrian For his work on cartenoids and vtamins. (award declined). "Professor Richard Kuhn was awarded half of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 1938, for his work on cartenoids and vtamins. Owing to political conditions at the time, Professor Kuhn was prevented from accepting the prize. In 1949 he received the gold medal and the diploma. (p. 463)" "Richard Kuhn was born on December 3, 1900, in Vienna, Austria ." 1939 Adolph Friedrrich Johann Butenandt (born 1903) German For his work on sex hormones. (award declined). Leopold Stephen Ruzicka (1887-1976) Hungarian For his work on polymethylenes and higher terpenes. "Professor Adolf Butenandt was awarded half of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 1939, for his work on sex hormones. Owing to political conditions at the time, Professor Butenandt was prevented from accepting the prize. In 1949 he received the gold medal and the diploma. (p. 463)" "Leopold Stephen Ruzicka was born on September 13, 1887, in Vukovar, a small Crotian town in the Danube, somewhere east of its confluence with the Drava. (p. 493)" Nobel Lectures; Chemistry (1922-1941) Published for the Nobel Foundation (New York, NY: Elsevier), 1966. QD 39 N735 v.2 Chemistry Library Reference (Non-Circulating) 1943 George de Hevesy (1885-1966) Hungarian Work with isotopes as tracers. 1944 Otto Hahn (1879-1968) German Nuclear fission. 1945 Artturi I. Virtanen (1895-1973) Finnish Method of preserving fodder. 1946 James B. Sumner (1887-1955) American John H. Northrop (1891-1987) American Wendell M. Stanley (1904-71) American Discovery that enzymes can be crystallized. Preparation of enzymes and virus proteins in pure form. 1947 Sir Robert Robinson (1886-1975) English Alkaloid studies. 1948 Arne Tiselius (1902-71) Swedish Work on serum proteins. 1949 William F. Giauque (1895-1982) American Demagnetization method to produce temperatures approximating absolute zero. 1950 Otto Diels (1876-1954) German Kurt Alder (1902-58) German Diene synthesis, method of making organic chemicals synthetically. 1951 Edwin M. McMillan (1907-91) American Glenn T. Seaborg (born 1912) American Discovery of plutonium and other transuranium elements. 1952 A.J.P. Martin (born 1910) English Richard L.M. Synge (born 1914) English Development of chromatographic analysis of closely related compounds. 1953 Hermann Staudinger (1881-1965) German Work in macromolecular chemistry. 1954 Linus C. Pauling (born 1901) American Studies of molecular structure and the chemical bond 1955 Vincent Du Vigneaud (1901-78) American Synthesis of pituitary hormones. 1956 Sir Cyril Hinshelwood (1897-1967) English Nikolai N. Semenov (1896-1986) Soviet Studies in chemical chain reactions. 1957 Sir Alexander Todd (born 1907) Scottish Synthesizing nucleic acids. 1958 Frederick Sanger (born 1918) English Determining structure of insulin molecule. 1959 Jaroslav Heyrovsky (1890-1967) Czech Development of polarographic analysis. 1960 Willard F. Libby (1908-80) American Technique of radiocarbon dating. 1961 Melvin Calvin (born 1911) American Sequence of chemical reactions in plants during photosynthesis. 1962 Max F. Perutz (born 1914) British John C. Kendrew (born 1917) English Research on molecular structure of globular proteins. 1963 Giulio Natta (1903-79) Italian Karl Ziegler (1898-1973) German Research in hydrocarbons leading to commercial products. 1964 Dorothy C. Hodgkin (born 1910) English X-ray determination of structure of compounds that control pernicious anemia. 1965 Robert B. Woodward (1917-79) American Contribution to art of organic synthesis. 1966 Robert S. Mulliken (1896-1986) American Work on structure of molecules. 1967 Manfred Eigen (born 1927) German Ronald G.W. Norrish (1897-1978) British George Porter (born 1920) British Studies of extremely rapid chemical reactions. 1968 Lars Onsager (1903-76) American Work in science of thermodynamics. 1969 Derek H.R. Barton (born 1918) English Odd Hassel (1897-1981) Norwegian Useful studies of conformation, or shape, of organic molecules. 1970 Luis F. Leloir (1906-87) Argentine Work on breakdown of sugars. 1971 Gerhard Herzberg (born 1904) Canadian Research on molecular structure. 1972 Christian B. Anfinsen (born 1916) American Stanford Moore (1913-82) American William H. Stein (1911-80) American Fundamental contributions to enzyme chemistry. 1973 Ernst Otto Fischer (born 1918) German Geoffrey Wilkinson (born 1921) British Research on organometallic "sandwich compounds.'' 1974 Paul J. Flory (1910-85) American Research in physical chemistry of macromolecules. 1975 John Warcup Cornforth (born 1917) Australian Vladimir Prelog (born 1906) Swiss 1976 William Nunn Lipscomb, Jr. (born 1919) American Work on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalyzed reactions and organic molecules. 1977 Ilya Prigogine (born 1917) Belgian Applications of thermodynamic theory. Prigogine, an expert in thermodynamics, had applied the law of dissipation, which generally held that ordered molecules tended to drift into disorder, to explain biological professes that dissipated energy at the same time that they were organizationally promoting growth. 1978 Peter Dennis Mitchell (1920-92) British Research concerning functions of cell membranes in metabolic processes. 1979 Herbert Charles Brown (born 1912) American Georg Wittig (1897-1987) German Development of boron and phosphorus compounds as organic synthesizers; Wittig reaction. 1980 Paul Berg (born 1926) American Walter Gilbert (born 1932) American Frederick Sanger (born 1918) English Biochemical studies of nucleic acids. 1981 Kenichi Fukui (born 1918) Japanese Roald Hoffmann (born 1937) American Formulation of rules that predict chemical reactions on basis of quantum mechanics. 1982 Aaron Klug (born 1926) South African Biochemical studies of nucleic acids and proteins. 1983 Henry Taube (born 1915) American Research in oxydalin-reduction reaction. 1984 Robert B. Merrifield (born 1921) American Development of rapid automated procedure to produce peptides. 1985 Herbert Hauptman (born 1917) American Jerome Karle (born 1918) American Development of a mathematical method to determine the three-dimensional structure of molecules. 1986 Dudley R. Herschbach (born 1932) American Yuan Tseh Lee (born 1936) American John C. Polanyi (born 1929) Canadian Chemical reaction dynamics. 1987 Donald J. Cram (born 1919) American Charles J. Pedersen (born 1904) American Jean-Marie Lehn (born 1939) French Research in molecular binding. 1988 Robert Huber (born 1937) German Johann Deisenhofer (born 1943) German Hartmut Michel (born 1948) German Analysis of the atoms of a bacterial protein complex. 1989 Sidney Altman (born 1939) American Thomas R. Cech (born 1947) American Discovery that ribonucleic acid (RNA) can act as enzyme to facilitate chemical reactions. 1990 Elias James Corey (born 1928) American Synthesis of chemical compounds based on natural substances. 1991 Richard Robert Ernst (born 1933) Swiss Refinements in methodology of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. 1992 Rudolph Marcus (born 1923) American Explanation of why chemical reactions differ in the speeds at which they proceed. 1993 Kary Mullis (American) -- (48) director of Xytronyx Inc. in San Diego, California Michael Smith (Canadian) -- (61) University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. For developing new ways to study the genetic material DNA. American Kary Mullis and Canadian Michael Smith, who was born in Blackpool , northern England, were awarded the chemistry prize for DNA-related work leading to progress in gene technology. "The chemical methods that Kary Mullis and Michael Smith have each developed for studying the DNA molecules of genetic material have further hastened the rapid development of genetic engineering," the academy said in a statement. This includes techniques for producing DNA from extinct animals in an apparent echo of the move "Jurassic Park", in which dinosaurs were brought back to life." Agence France Presse, October 13, 1993 Kary Mullis won for his invention of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method. The academy said this method made it possible "using simple equipment to multiply a given DNA segment from a complicated genetic material millions of times in a few hours, which is of very great significance for biochemical and genetic research." It said the method "offers new possibilities particularly in medical diagnostics and is used, for example, for discovering HIV virus or faulty genes in hereditary diseases." Michael Smith's work has made it "possible to re-programme the genetic code and in the way replace specific amino acids in the proteins," the academy said. It said this led to increases in "the possibilities of constructing proteins with new properties." This could lead to tailoring "antibodies so that they can attack cancer cells and to alter proteins to create faster-growing crop strains." the statement said. Agence France Presse, October 13, 1993 1994 George A. Olah (Hungarian-American) -- (61) University of Southern California, Los Angeles. The study of hydrocarbons, the ingredients of oil and natural gas, and uncovered new ways to use them. In the early 1960s, he and his colleagues discovered that extremely strong acids, called superacids, could be used to modify hydrocarbons to make them easier to study. That helped give the world more effective oil refining, lead-free gasoline and has enabled scientists to make plastics and other petroleum-based products with less damage to the environment. Trained in chemistry in Hungary, Mr. Olah left in 1956 soon after the failed uprising against Communist rule and moved to the United States. George Olah has 85 patents from seven countries, including four for the transformation of natural gas into the type of hydrocarbons used in gasoline. The Baltimore Sun, October 13, 1994. 1995 Paul Crutzen (Netherlands) Max-Planck Institute for Chemistry Mario Molina (Mexico) Massachusetts Institute of Technology F. Sherwood Rowland (American) University of California, Irvine For their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone. 1996 1996 Harold Kroto -- British Robert Curl Jr. -- American Richard E. Smalley -- American For the discovery of fullerenes. "New forms of the element carbon - called fullerenes - in which the atoms are arranged in closed shells was discovered in 1985 by Robert F. Curl, Harold W. Kroto and Richard E. Smalley. The number of carbon atoms in the shell can vary, and for this reason numerous new carbon structures have become known. Formerly, six crystalline forms of the element carbon were known, namely two kinds of graphite, two kinds of diamond, chaoit and carbon(VI). The latter two were discovered in 1968 and 1972. Fullerenes are formed when vaporised carbon condenses in an atmosphere of inert gas. The gaseous carbon is obtained e.g. by directing an intense pulse of laser light at a carbon surface. The released carbon atoms are mixed with a stream of helium gas and combine to form clusters of some few up to hundreds of atoms. The gas is then led into a vacuum chamber where it expands and is cooled to some degrees above absolute zero. The carbon clusters can then be analysed with mass spectrometry." Source: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Prize in Chemistry in Memory of Alfred Nobel, 1996 http://www.nobel.se/announcement-96/chemistry96.html Details about Robert Curl and Richard Smalley, Rice University, Houston, Texas "Two of our Professors (Robert Curl and Richard Smalley) at Rice University were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday, October 9 for their discovery of buckminsterfullerenes or Carbon 60. They will share the prize with Sir Harold Kroto of the University of Sussex in Brighton, England. For more information about Richard Smalley on the Web, see http://cnst.rice.edu/reshome.html. For information about Robert Curl see http://pchem1.rice.edu/FacultyStaff/Curl.html. And for information about the new Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology at Rice University see http://cnst.rice.edu." Source: Robert G. Sabin, Science & Engineering Librarian Rice University, Fondren Library MS-44, Houston TX CHMINF-L listserv posting (October 15, 1996)