Alfred werner

Alfred Werner (Mulhouse, Alsace, formerly in Germany, now in France, December 12, 1866 - Zurich, November 15, 1919) was a Swiss chemist, professor at the University of Zurich and winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1913 for proposing the octahedral configuration of metal transition complexes. He developed the bases of the modern metal complex. He was the first inorganic chemist to win the Nobel Prize, in fact, the only one before 1973.

Biography

Alfred Werner carried out his first chemical experiments at the age of 18. He studied in Karlsruhe, Zurich and Paris. He was professor of organic chemistry at the Zurich Polytechnic in 1895, at the age of 29. Since 1913 he suffered from arteriosclerosis, dying from his disease in 1919 in Zurich.

Scientific research

Werner developed in his doctoral work the bases for the study of metal complexes.

In 1893 he enunciated the theory of coordination, also called residual valences, according to which the inorganic molecular components act as a central nucleus around which a defined number of other atoms, radicals or other molecules are located according to a simple geometric pattern., and thanks to which the isomers of many metal combinations were discovered. He proposed the octahedral configuration of transition metal complexes, what is now known as octahedral molecular geometry.

In 1913 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in recognition of his work on the coupling of atoms in molecules by which he has opened new doors in earlier research and has opened up new fields of research especially in inorganic chemistry .

In 1914 he discovered exol, a cobalt salt, the first chiral compound that did not contain carbon atoms.

Written Works

• Beiträge zur Theorie der Affinität und Valeur, Lehrbuch der Stereochemie (1904)
• Ueber die Konstitution und Konfiguration von Verbindungen höherer Ordnung (1914).