Winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry

1902 Emil Hermann Fischer Work on carbohydrates and purines.

1903 Svante August Arrhenius Theory of electrolytic dissociation.

1904 Sir William Ramsay Discovery of helium, neon, xenon and krypton.

1905 Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer Synthetic organic chemistry, particularily for the synthesis of indigo and triphenylmethane dyes.

1906 Ferdinand Frédéric Henri Moissan Preparing pure fluorine and developing the electric furnace (the Moissan furnace).

1907 Eduard Buchner Biochemical research including discovery of cell-less fermentation (fermentation in a test tube by extracting the active enzymes from yeast cells).

1908 Ernest Rutherford Study of radioactive substances.

1909 Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald Work on catalysis, chemical equilibrium and reaction rates.

1910 Otto Wallach Work on alicyclic compounds.

1911 Marie Curie Chemistry of radioactive isotopes.

1912 Francois Auguste Victor Grignard Discovery of the Grignard reaction.
also Paul Sabatier Study of metal catalysts and particularily the hydrogenation of unsaturated organic molecules.

1913 Alfred Werner Work in coordination chemistry.

1914 Theodore William Richards Determining the atomic weights of many elements.

1915 Richard Martin Willstätter Research on chlorophyll and other plant pigments.

1916-1917 No award.

1918 Fritz Haber Haber-Bosch process of synthesizing ammonia.

1919 No award.

1920 Walther Hermann Nernst Thermodynamics of chemical reactions.

1921 Frederick Soddy Chemistry of radioactive substances and isotopes.

1922 Francis William Aston Design and use of the mass spectrograph.

1923 Fritz Pregl Development of microanalytical methods for organic substances.

1924 No award.

1925 Richard Adolf Zsigmondy Study of colloids.

1926 Theodor Svedberg Study of colloid chemistry and Brownian motion.

1927 Heinrich Otto Wieland Study of bile acids.

1928 Adolf Windaus Study of sterols and vitamins.

1929 Sir Arthur Harden and Hans Karl August Simon von Euler-Chelpin Enzymes in the fermentation process.

1930 Hans Fischer Structure of hemin and chlorophyll.

1931 Carl Bosch and Friedrich Bergius Development of high-pressure manufacturing methods including those for manufacturing ammonia and liquifying coal.

1932 Irving Langmuir Discoveries and inventions in the field of surface chemistry.

1933 No award

1934 Harold Clayton Urey Discovery of deuterium.

1935 Frédéric Joliot and Irène Joliot-Curie Creation of new radioactive elements.

1936 Petrus Josephus Wilhelmus Debije (Peter Debye) Studies of dipole moments, electron diffraction and X-rays diffraction of gases.

1937 Sir Walter Norman Haworth Research on carbohydrates and vitamin C.
also Paul Karrer Study of carotenoids, flavins and vitamins A and B₂.

1938 Richard Kuhn Work on carotenoids and vitamins.

1939 Adolf Friedrich Johann Butenandt Study of sex hormones.
also Leopold Ruzicka Work on polymethylenes and higher terpenes.

1940-1942 No award.

1943 George Charles de Hevesy Work with radiochemical isotopes

1944 Otto Hahn Discoveries in nuclear fission.

1945 Artturi Virtanen Invention of new methods in agricultural biochemistry.

1946 James Batcheller Sumner Discovery that enzymes can be crystallized.
also John Howard Northrop Study of enzymes.
also Wendell Stanley Isolation of a virus.

1947 Sir William Bradbury Robinson Natural products synthesis, especially the alkaloids.

1948 Arne Wilhelm Kaurin Tiselius Work on electrophoresis and absorption analysis and especially for his work on blood serum proteins.

1949 William Francis Giauque Study of reactions in extreme cold.

1950 Otto Paul Hermann Diels and Kurt Alder Diene synthesis.

1951 Edwin Mattison McMillan and Glenn Theodore Seaborg Discoveries in transuranium elements.

1952 Archer John Porter Martin and Richard Laurence Millington Synge Development of liquid-liquid partition chromatography.

1953 Hermann Staudinger Work in macromolecular chemistry.

1954 Linus Carl Pauling Research in the nature of the chemical bond.

1955 Vincent Du Vigneaud Work on biologically important compounds containing sulfur and particularily for the synthesis of the polypeptide hormone oxytocin.

1956 Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood and Nikolay Nikolayevich Semënov Studies of the kinetics and mechanism of explosive reactions.

1957 Lord Alexander Robertus Todd Synthesis of nucleotides and nucleotide coenzymes.

1958 Frederick Sanger Discovery of the structure of insulin.

1959 Jaroslav Heyrovský Invention and development of polarography.

1960 Willard Frank Libby Development of carbon 14 dating.

1961 Melvin Calvin Research on photosynthesis.

1962 Sir John Cowdery Kendrew and Max Ferdinand Perutz Studies of hemoglobin and myoglobin.

1963 Giulio Natta and Karl Ziegler Polymer synthesis techniques.

1964 Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin X-ray studies of biological molecules including penicillin and vitamin B₁₂.

1965 Robert Burns Woodward Organic synthesis techniques.

1966 Robert Sanderson Mulliken Contributions to molecular orbital theory.

1967 Manfred Eigen and Ronald George Wreyford Norish and George Porter Techniques to measure rapid chemical reactions.

1968 Lars Onsager Contributions to the thermodynamics of irreversible processes.

1969 Sir Derek Harold Richard Barton and Odd Hassel Principles of conformation in chemistry.

1970 Luis Federico Leloir Biochemical pathways involved in the synthesis of sucrose, lactose, trehalose and glycogen.

1971 Gerhard Herzberg Work on electronic structure and geometry of free radicals.

1972 Christian Boehmer Anfinsen and Stanford Moore and William Howard Stein Chemistry of proteins and in particular the enzyme ribonuclease.

1973 Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson and Ernst Otto Fischer Work on organometallic compounds.

1974 Paul John Flory Theoretical and experimental work in polymer chemistry.

1975 John Warcup Cornforth and Vladimir Prelog Work on the stereochemistry of reactions catalyzed by enzymes.

1976 William Nunn Lipscomb, Jr. Work on borane chemistry.

1977 Ilya Prigogine Nonequilibrium thermodynamics.

1978 Peter Dennis Mitchell Cellular energy transfer.

1979 Herbert Charles Brown and Georg Wittig Organic synthesis techniques.

1980 Paul Berg and Walter Gilbert and Frederick Sanger Chemical structure of nucleic acids.

1981 Kenichi Fukui and Roald Hoffmann Frontier orbital theory of chemical reactivity.

1982 Aaron Klug Development of crystallographic electron microscopy and elucidation of biologically important nucleic acid - protein complexes.

1983 Henry Taube Study of inorganic reaction mechanisms.

1984 Robert Bruce Merrifield Solid-phase organic synthesis techniques.

1985 Herbert Aaron Hauptman and Jerome Karle Methods for determination of crystal structures.

1986 Dudley Robert Herschbach and Yuan Tseh Lee and John Charles Polanyi Collision dynamics of elementary chemical reactions.

1987 Donald J. Cram and Jean-Marie Lehn and Charles John Pedersen Structure-specific interactions of high selectivity.

1988 Hartmut Michel and Johann Deisenhofer and Robert Huber Structure of a membrane protein from the purple photosynthetic bacterium Rhodopseudomonas viridis.

1989 Sidney Altman and Thomas R. Cech Showed that RNA could act as a biological catalyst.

1990 Elias James Corey Organic synthesis.

1991 Richard R. Ernst Development of nuclear magnetic resonance.

1992 Rudolph A. Marcus Theory of electron-transfer reactions.

1993 Kary B. Mullis and Michael Smith Development of chemical methods of manipulating DNA.

1994 George A. Olah Role of carbocations in the chemical reactions of hydrocarbons.

1995 F. Sherwood Rowland, Mario Molina and Paul Crutzen Chemistry controlling atmospheric ozone levels.

1996 Richard E. Smalley, Robert F. Curl Jr. and Harold Kroto Discovery of fullerenes.

1997 Paul D. Boyer and John E. Walker Discovery of enzymatic mechanism responsible for creating adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in living organisms. and to
Jens C. Skou Discovery of enzymes that regulate the concentration of sodium and potassium in living organisms.

1998 Walter Kohn and John A. Pople Walter Kohn for his development of the density-functional theory and John A. Pople for his development of computational methods in quantum chemistry.

1999 Ahmed H. Zewail Studies of the transition states of chemical reactions using femtosecond spectroscopy.

2000 Alan G. MacDiarmid and Alan J. Heeger and Hideki Shirakawa Electrically conductive polymers.

Further information

A book giving the biographies of the laureates and describing their work is
L. K. James, Ed. "Nobel Laureates in Chemistry 1901-1992" American Chemical Society and Chemical Heritage Foundation (1994)

A list of each years nobel prize winners appears in
Chemistry and Engineering News

The Nobel Foundation web site is at
http://www.nobel.se/

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