Alfred Werner
| Alfred Werner | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | 12 December 1866 Mulhouse, Haut-Rhin, Alsace, France |
| Died | 15 November 1919 (aged 52) Zurich, Switzerland |
| Nationality | Swiss |
| Fields | Inorganic chemistry |
| Institutions | University of Zurich |
| Alma mater |
University of Zurich ETH Zurich |
| Doctoral advisor | Arthur Rudolf Hantzsch, Marcellin Berthelot |
| Known for | configuration of transition metal complexes |
| Notable awards | Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1913) |
Alfred Werner (12 December 1866 – 15 November 1919) was a Swiss chemist who was a student at ETH Zurich and a professor at the University of Zurich. He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1913 for proposing the octahedral configuration of transition metal complexes. Werner developed the basis for modern coordination chemistry. He was the first inorganic chemist to win the Nobel prize, and the only one prior to 1973.
Werner was born in 1866 in Mulhouse, Alsace (which was then part of France, but which was annexed by Germany in 1871). He was raised as Roman Catholic. He went to Switzerland to study chemistry at the Swiss Federal Institute (Polytechnikum) in Zurich where he obtained his doctorate in 1890 at the same institution. After postdoctoral study in Paris, he returned to the Swiss Federal Institute to teach (1892), in 1893 he moved to the University of Zurich where he became a professor in 1895. The same year he became a Swiss citizen.
In 1893, Werner was the first to propose correct structures for coordination compounds containing complex ions, in which a central transition metal atom is surrounded by neutral or anionic ligands.
For example, it was known that cobalt forms a "complex" hexamminecobalt(III) chloride, with formula CoCl3•6NH3, but the nature of the association indicated by the dot was mysterious. Werner proposed the structure [Co(NH3)6]Cl3, with the Co3+ ion surrounded by six NH3 at the vertices of an octahedron. The three Cl− are dissociated as free ions, which Werner confirmed by measuring the conductivity of the compound in aqueous solution, and also by chloride anion analysis using precipitation with silver nitrate. Later, magnetic susceptibility analysis was also used to confirm Werner's proposal for the chemical nature of CoCl3•6NH3.
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