Nobel Prizes in Chemistry (1901-1960)

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

1901-1910

1901	Jacobus van 't Hoff 1852 - 1911	"in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by the discovery of the laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure in solutions"
1902	Hermann Emil Fischer 1852 - 1919	"in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his work on sugar and purine syntheses"
1903	Svante August Arrhenius 1859 - 1927	"in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered to the advancement of chemistry by his electrolytic theory of dissociation"
1904	William Ramsay 1859 - 1927	"in recognition of his services in the discovery of the inert gaseous elements in air, and his determination of their place in the periodic system"
1905	Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer 1835 - 1917	"in recognition of his services in the advancement of organic chemistry and the chemical industry, through his work on organic dyes and hydroaromatic compounds"
1906	Ferdinant Frédéric Henri Moissan 1852 - 1907	"in recognition of the great services rendered by him in his investigation and isolation of the element fluorine, and for the adoption in the service of science of the electric furnace called after him"
1907	Eduard Buchner 1860 - 1917	"for his biochemical researches and his discovery of cell-free fermentation"
1908	Ernest Rutherford 1871 - 1937	"for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances"
1909	Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald 1853 - 1932	"in recognition of his work on catalysis and for his investigations into the fundamental principles governing chemical equilibria and rates of reaction"
1910 top	Otto Wallach 1847 - 1931	"in recognition of his services to organic chemistry and the chemical industry by his pioneer work in the field of alicyclic compounds"

1911-1920

1911	Maria Sklodowska-Curie 1867 - 1934	"in recognition of her services to the advancement of chemistry by the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element"
1912	F. A.Victor Grignard 1 1871 - 1935 Paul Sabatier 2 1854 - 1941	1 "for the discovery of the so-called Grignard reagent, which in recent years has greatly advanced the progress of organic chemistry" 2 "for his method of hydrogenating organic compounds in the presence of finely disintegrated metals whereby the progress of organic chemistry has been greatly advanced in recent years"
1913	Alfred Werner 1866 - 1919	"in recognition of his work on the linkage of atoms in molecules by which he has thrown new light on earlier investigations and opened up new fields of research especially in inorganic chemistry"
1914 (allocated in 1915)	Theodore William Richards 1868 - 1928	"in recognition of his accurate determinations of the atomic weight of a large number of chemical elements"
1915	Richard Martin Willstätter 1868 - 1928	"for his researches on plant pigments, especially chlorophyll"
1916	The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1917	The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1918	Fritz Haber 1868 - 1934	"for the synthesis of ammonia from its elements" NB : prize announced in 1919 and awarded in 1920
1919	The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1920 (allocated in 1921)	Hermann Walther Nernst 1864 - 1941	"in recognition of his work in thermochemistry"

1921-1930

1921 (allocated in 1922)	Frederick Soddy 1877 - 1956	"for his contributions to our knowledge of the chemistry of radioactive substances, and his investigations into the origin and nature of isotopes"
1922	Francis William Aston 1877 - 1945	"for his discovery, by means of his mass spectrograph, of isotopes, in a large number of non-radioactive elements, and for his enunciation of the whole-number rule"
1923	Fritz Pregl 1869 - 1930	"for his invention of the method of micro-analysis of organic substances"
1924	The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1925 (allocated in 1926)	Richard Adolf Zsigmondy 1877 - 1945	"for his demonstration of the heterogenous nature of colloid solutions and for the methods he used, which have since become fundamental in modern colloid chemistry"
1926	Theodor Svedberg 1884 - 1971	"for his work on disperse systems"
1927 (announced in 1928)	Heinrich Otto Wieland 1877 - 1957	"for his investigations of the constitution of the bile acids and related substances"
1928	Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus 1876 - 1959	"for the services rendered through his research into the constitution of the sterols and their connection with the vitamins"
1929	Arthur Harden 1865 - 1940 Hans von Euler-Chelpin 1873 - 1964	"for their investigations on the fermentation of sugar and fermentative enzymes"
1930 top	Hans Fischer 1873 - 1964	"for his researches into the constitution of haemin and chlorophyll and especially for his synthesis of haemin"

1931-1940

1931	Carl Bosch 1874 - 1940 Friedrich Bergius 1884 - 1949	"in recognition of their contributions to the invention and development of chemical high pressure methods"
1932	Irving Langmuir 1881 - 1957	"for his discoveries and investigations in surface chemistry"
1933	The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
1934	Harold Clayton Urey 1883 - 1961	"for his discovery of heavy hydrogen"
1935	Frédéric Joliot 1890 - 1958 Irène Joliot-Curie 1897 - 1956	"in recognition of their synthesis of new radioactive elements"
1936	Petrus Josephus Wilhelmus Debye 1884 - 1966	"for his contributions to our knowledge of molecular structure through his investigations on dipole moments and on the diffraction of X-rays and electrons in gases"
1937	Walter Norman Haworth 1 1883 - 1950 Paul Karrer 2 1889 - 1971	1 "for his investigations on carbohydrates and vitamin C" 2 "for his investigations on carotenoids, flavins and vitamins A and B2"
1938 (allocated in 1939)	Richard Kuhn 1900 - 1967	"for his work on carotenoids and vitamins"
1939	Adolf F. J. Butenandt 1 1903 - 1995 Leopold Ruzicka 2 1887 - 1976	1 "for his work on sex hormones" 2 "for his work on polymethylenes and higher terpenes"
1940 top	The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section

1941-1950

1941	The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
1942	The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
1943 (allocated in 1944)	George de Hevesy 1885 - 1966	"for his work on the use of isotopes as tracers in the study of chemical processes"
1944 (allocated in 1945)	Otto Hahn 1879 - 1968	"for his discovery of the fission of heavy nuclei"
1945	Artturi Ilmari Virtanen 1895 - 1973	"for his research and inventions in agricultural and nutrition chemistry, especially for his fodder preservation method"
1946	James B. Sumner 1 1887 - 1955 John Howard Northrop 2 1891 - 1987 Wendell Stanley 2 1904 - 1971	1 "for his discovery that enzymes can be crystallized" 2 "for their preparation of enzymes and virus proteins in a pure form" NB : The prize was divided, one half being awarded to Sumner and the other half jointly to Northrop and Stanley.
1947	Robert Robinson 1886 - 1975	"for his investigations on plant products of biological importance, especially the alkaloids"
1948	Arne Wilhelm Kaurin Tiselius 1902 - 1971	"for his research on electrophoresis and adsorption analysis, especially for his discoveries concerning the complex nature of the serum proteins"
1949	William Francis Giauque 1895 - 1982	"for his contributions in the field of chemical thermodynamics, particularly concerning the behaviour of substances at extremely low temperatures"
1950 top	Otto P. H. Diels 1876 - 1954 Kurt Alder 1902 - 1954	"for their discovery and development of the diene synthesis" (Diels-Alder reaction)

1951-1960

1951	Edwin M. McMillan 1907 - 1991 Glenn T. Seaborg 1912 - 1999	"for their discoveries in the chemistry of the transuranium elements"
1952	Archer John Porter Martin 1910 - 2002 Richard Laurence Millington Synge 1814 - 1994	"for their invention of partition chromatography"
1953	Hermann Staudinger 1881 - 1965	"for his discoveries in the field of macromolecular chemistry"
1954	Linus Carl Pauling 1901 - 1994	"for his research into the nature of the chemical bond and its application to the elucidation of the structure of complex substances"
1955	Vincent du Vigneaud 1901 - 1978	"for his work on biochemically important sulphur compounds, especially for the first synthesis of a polypeptide hormone"
1956	Cyril Norman Hinshelwood 1897 - 1967 Nikolay Nikolaevich Semenov 1896 - 1986	"for their researches into the mechanism of chemical reactions"
1957	Alexander R. Todd 1907 - 1997	"for his work on nucleotides and nucleotide co-enzymes"
1958	Frederick Sanger 1918 -	"for his work on the structure of proteins, especially that of insulin" (second Nobel prize in 1980)
1959	Jaroslav Heyrovský 1890 - 1967	"for his discovery and development of the polarographic methods of analysis"
1960 top	Willard F. Libby 1908 - 1980	"for his method to use carbon-14 for age determination in archaeology, geology, geophysics, and other branches of science"