This list of Russian chemists includes the famous chemists and material scientists of the Russian Federation, the Soviet Union, the Russian Empire and other predecessor states of Russia.
This list of Russian chemists includes the famous chemists and material scientists of the Russian Federation, the Soviet Union, the Russian Empire and other predecessor states of Russia.
Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe was a major contributor to the birth of modern organic chemistry. He was a professor at Marburg and Leipzig. Kolbe was the first to apply the term synthesis in a chemical context, and contributed to the philosophical demise of vitalism through synthesis of the organic substance acetic acid from carbon disulfide, and also contributed to the development of structural theory. This was done via modifications to the idea of "radicals" and accurate prediction of the existence of secondary and tertiary alcohols, and to the emerging array of organic reactions through his Kolbe electrolysis of carboxylate salts, the Kolbe-Schmitt reaction in the preparation of aspirin and the Kolbe nitrile synthesis. After studies with Wöhler and Bunsen, Kolbe was involved with the early internationalization of chemistry through work in London. He was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and won the Royal Society of London's Davy Medal in the year of his death. Despite these accomplishments and his training important members of the next generation of chemists, Kolbe is best remembered for editing the Journal für Praktische Chemie for more than a decade, in which his vituperative essays on Kekulé's structure of benzene, van't Hoff's theory on the origin of chirality and Baeyer's reforms of nomenclature were personally critical and linguistically violent. Kolbe died of a heart attack in Leipzig at age 66, six years after the death of his wife, Charlotte. He was survived by four children.
Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a Romantic composer and chemist of Georgian-Russian extraction. He was one of the prominent 19th-century composers known as "The Five", a group dedicated to producing a "uniquely Russian" kind of classical music. Borodin is known best for his symphonies, his two string quartets, the symphonic poem In the Steppes of Central Asia and his opera Prince Igor.
In organic chemistry, Markovnikov's rule or Markownikoff's rule describes the outcome of some addition reactions. The rule was formulated by Russian chemist Vladimir Markovnikov in 1870.
Boris Pavlovich Belousov was a Soviet chemist and biophysicist who discovered the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction in the early 1950s. His work initiated the field of modern nonlinear chemical dynamics.
Nikolay Nikolayevich Semyonov, was a Soviet physicist and chemist. Semyonov was awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the mechanism of chemical transformation.
Vladimir Nikolayevich Ipatieff ; was a Russian and American chemist. His most important contributions are in the field of petroleum chemistry and catalysts.
Alekséy Yevgényevich Chichibábin was a Soviet/Russian organic chemist, born 29 March [O.S. 17 March] 1871, Kuzemin village, current Sumy Oblast, Ukraine, died in Paris, France, 15 August 1945. His name is also written Alexei Yevgenievich Chichibabin and Alexei Euguenievich Tchitchibabine.
Aleksandr Pavlovich Dianin was a Russian chemist from Saint Petersburg. He carried out studies on phenols and discovered a phenol derivative now known as bisphenol A and the accordingly named Dianin's compound. He was married to the adopted daughter of fellow chemist Alexander Borodin. In 1887, Dianin succeeded his father-in-law as chair of the Chemistry Department at the Imperial Medical-Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg.
Alexey Yevgrafovich Favorsky, was a Russian and Soviet chemist. Hero of Socialist Labour (1945).
Aleksandr Erminingeldovich Arbuzov was a Russian Empire and Soviet chemist who discovered the Michaelis–Arbuzov reaction.
Nikolai Aleksandrovich Menshutkin was a Russian chemist who discovered the process of converting a tertiary amine to a quaternary ammonium salt via the reaction with an alkyl halide, now known as the Menshutkin reaction.
Simon El'evich Shnol was a biophysicist, and a historian of Soviet science. He was a professor at Physics Department of Moscow State University and a member of Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. His fields of interest were the oscillatory processes in biology, the theory of evolution, chronobiology, and the history of science. He had mentored many successful scientists, including Anatoly Zhabotinsky.
Boris Aleksandrovich Arbuzov, was a Russian and Soviet chemist and a representative of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union of 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th convocations.
Herman Pines was a Russian Empire-born American chemist. Born in Łódź—then part of the Russian Empire—he left his hometown as a young man as Jewish quotas and other anti-Jewish practices prevented Jewish students from attending university. After earning a degree in chemical engineering at the École Supérieure de Chimie Industrielle de Lyon in France, he worked at Universal Oil Products from 1930 to 1952. Pines also worked at Northwestern University beginning in 1941, and served from 1953–1970 as the Ipatieff Research Professor of Chemistry and director of the Ipatieff High Pressure and Catalytic Laboratory.