1901-1909


 * 1901 - Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff** (Laszlo Berencei)



The first Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded in 1901 to Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff of the Netherlands, it was presented on the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death. van 't Hoff was born in 1852 in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and was the third of seven children. From a young age he was interested in science and nature. Eventually, van 't Hoff chose to study chemistry, against the wishes of his father. He started his college studies in 1969 at Delft University of Technology, where he obtained a degree of chemical technologist after only 2 years in the 3 years program. Then he continued his studies in chemistry at the University of Leiden. He then studied in Bonn, Germany with Friedrich Kekulé and in Paris with C. A. Wurtz. He received his doctorate under Eduard Mulder at the University of Utrecht in 1874. Before he received his doctorate, van 't Hoff had already published the first of his important contributions to the field of organic chemistry. In 1874 he accounted for the phenomenon of optical activity by assuming that the chemical bonds between carbon atoms and their neighbors were directed towards the corners of a regular tetrahedron.

He was awarded the Nobel prize "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by the discovery of the laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure in solutions". In 1884, van 't Hoff published his research on chemical kinetics, titled Études de Dynamique chimique ("Studies in Chemical Dynamics"), in which he described a new method for determining the order of a reaction using graphics, and applied the laws of thermodynamics to chemical equilibria. He also introduced the modern concept of chemical affinity. His work on solutions showed that very dilute solutions follow mathematical laws that closely resemble the laws describing the behavior of gases.

van 't Hoff won several other awards, too. In 1885, he was appointed as a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences. He also received honorary doctorates from multiple Universities including Harvard and Yale, the Davy Medal of the Royal Society and the Helmholtz Medal of the Prussian Academy of Sciences Of his numerous distinctions, van 't Hoff regarded winning the first Nobel Prize in Chemistry as the culmination of his career.

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1902 – Hermann Emil Fischer

 * Darrius Woody**

== =Hermann Emil Fischer in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his work on sugar and purine syntheses. = =Fischer was born in Euskirchen, Germany. After graduating he studied natural sciences, but his dad wanted him to take over the family business until he figured out that Fischer wasn’t good at it. Fischer attended the University of Strasbourg in 1872. He obtained his doctorate in 1874 with his study of phthale and later became a teacher’s assistant at the university. Fischer became an assistant in organic chemistry at the University of Munich. In 1878 Fischer qualified as a Privatdozent or P.D. at Munich, where he became Associate Professor of Analytical Chemistry in 1879 and was offered the Chair of Chemistry at Aachen, but respectfully declined. = =While he was at Munich, Fischer continued to work on the hydrazines, which are inorganic chemical compounds. = = Fischer studied the characteristics of tea, coffee and cocoa, (caffeine) and established the laws, quantitative, and qualitative aspects, eventually analyzing them. Fischer was most famous for his studies of the purines and the sugars. His studies lasted from 1882-1906 showed that different (unknown at the time) substance like adenine, in vegetable substances, caffeine, and in uric acid and guanine. All belonging to one homogeneous family and they corresponded to different hydroxyl and amino derivatives of the same system made by a forming two cycles of nitrogenous structure into which the characteristic urea group came. This matter, which at first he thought to be theoretical, he called purine in 1884, and he further analyzed it in 1898. A lot of later products of the experiment, kind of similar to the natural substances came from his laboratory between 1882 and 1896. This monumental work on the sugars, carried out between 1884 and 1894, was extended by other work, the most important being his studies of the glucosides. Hermann Emil Fischer had excellent memory which allowed him to deliver elaborate speeches even though he wasn't a very good speaker. He was unhappily in a marriage with Agnes Gerlach and had three kids. =

David- 1906 Henri Moissan was born in Paris on September 28, 1852, to an officer in the Eastern Railway Company, and a humble seamstress. His upper level education started at the Collège de Meaux, but then Henri moved in to Edmond Frémy's laboratory at the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle, where he attended various lectures from authoritative figures such as E.H. Sainte-Claire Deville and Henri Debray. As he advanced through various labs and universities ,Henri finally achieved his doctorate in 1880 for his thesis on the cyanogen series. In the 1800’s Henri Moissan’s focus left biology and toxicology and narrowed on inorganic chemistry, specifically the study of flourine. Moissan discovered and tested many properties of fluorine such as its ability to conduct electricity at sub-zero temperatures. His studies of fluorine led to his achievement of successfully isolating fluorine from various compounds, which was never before had been done with success; this led to him winning the Nobel peace prize in 1906. Henri Moissan was also very interested in the concept of creating diamonds from carbon, which led him to create a special electro-arch furnace which could heat up to an amazing 3500°C. With over three hundred publications, an electro-arch furnace, and a Nobel peace prize under his belt, he died of an acute appendicitis mere months after he returned home from receiving his prize.

Cady- 1907 Fermentation is the process of finding energy from a oxidation, or a chemical reaction that changes an atoms oxide number, using organic compounds. Fermentation of sugar by yeast is commonly used to make alcoholic beverages such as beer and wine. However, in 1907 Eduard Buchner discovered cell-free Fermentation, showing that living yeast cells were not necessary for Fermentation to occur. Buckner found that rather than fermentation occurring inside of the yeast cells, yeast cells instead secrete proteins that ferment sugars in their environment.  In 1860, Eduard Buchner was born in Munich, Germany, the son of physician Dr. Ernest Buchner and Friederike //Nee // Buchner. His father died when Eduard was a young boy, and later his brother, Hans, allowed Eduard to take general education. After studying at Munich Polytechnic in the chemical laboratory of E. Erlenmeyer senior, Buchner started work at a canning factory. Eduard later realized that chemistry interested him so he decided to study science with Adolf Von Baeyer. Buchner also worked with Professor C von. Naegeli at the Botanic Institute in Munich. In 1888, he received his doctorate from the University of Munich. Eduard Buchner is most famous for his discovery of cell-free fermentation that won him the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1907.

