HomeAward WinnersList Of All Nobel Prize Winners In Chemistry (2024 Updated)
List Of All Nobel Prize Winners In Chemistry (2024 Updated)
Last Updated: 5 March 2024
Did you know that the Nobel Prize Award name was taken from Alfred Nobel’s Surname? Yes, you heard it right! Before we get into the list of Nobel Prizes in Chemistry, let’s have a quick intro about this Award.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded every year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry.
Nobel Prize in Chemistry is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the 1895 will of Alfred Nobel who died in 1896, awarded for outstanding contributions to Chemistry. As dictated by Alfred Nobel’s will, the award is administered by the Nobel Foundation and awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
The Award is presented in Stockholm at an annual ceremony on 10 December, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death. Each recipient receives a Gold Medal, a Diploma bearing Citation, and a Monetary Award Prize that has varied throughout the years.
Page Contents
Nobel Prize Laureates In Chemistry By Nationality
No.
#
Country
Laureates
1
United States
82
2
Germany
34
3
United Kingdom
34
4
France
11
5
Japan
8
6
Switzerland
7
7
Israel
6
8
Canada
5
9
Sweden
5
10
Netherlands
4
11
Hungary
3
12
Austria
2
13
New Zealand
2
14
Norway
2
15
Poland
2
16
Denmark
2
17
Argentina
1
18
Australia
1
19
Belgium
1
20
Czech Republic
1
21
Egypt
1
22
Finland
1
23
India
1
24
Italy
1
25
Mexico
1
26
Romania
1
27
Russia
2
28
Turkey
1
29
Taiwan
1
Interesting Facts About Nobel Prize Winners In Chemistry
The Nobel Prize Medals in Physics, Chemistry, Literature, And Physiology or Medicine are identical on the face. It shows the image of Alfred Nobel and the years of his birth and death (1833-1896).
The first Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded in 1901 to “Jacobus Henricus van ‘t Hoff”, of the Netherlands who received 150,782 SEK.
25 laureates have received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their contributions to the field of Organic Chemistry, more than any other field of Chemistry.
Two Nobel Prize laureates in Chemistry, Germans Richard Kuhn (1938) and Adolf Butenandt (1939) were not allowed by their government to accept the prize but later accepted it.
Nobel Prize in Chemistry was given to only one person from 1901 to 1911, In 1912 the award was given to two persons and in 1946 the award was given to three persons for the first time.
Frederick Sanger is one out of two laureates to be awarded the Nobel prize twice in Chemistry in 1958 and 1980 while John Bardeen is the other and was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1956 and 1972.
Maria Skłodowska-Curie has also won two Nobel Prizes, for physics in 1903 and chemistry in 1911.
Nobel Prize Award in Chemistry has been awarded to 190 Individuals between 1901 to 2022 (121 Years).
Eight women have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry: Maria Skłodowska-Curie (1911), Irène Joliot-Curie (1935), Dorothy Hodgkin (1964), Ada Yonath (2009), Frances Arnold (2018), Emmanuelle Charpentier (2020), Jennifer Doudna (2020), Carolyn R. Bertozzi (2022).
Nobel Prize in Chemistry was not awarded for a total of eight years (1916, 1917, 1919, 1924, 1933, 1940, 1941, 1942).
Here is the list of Nobel Prize Winners In Chemistry from 1901 to 2022.
Nobel Prize Winners (2020-2029)
2023
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Moungi G. Bawendi
United States + France
Discovery and synthesis of quantum dots
2
Louis E. Brus
United States
Discovery and synthesis of quantum dots
3
Alexey Ekimov
Russia
Discovery and synthesis of quantum dots
2022
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Carolyn R. Bertozzi
United States
Development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry
2
Morten Meldal
Denmark
Development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry
3
K. Barry Sharpless
United States
Development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry
Studies of the structure and function of the ribosome
2
Thomas A. Steitz
United States
Studies of the structure and function of the ribosome
3
Ada E. Yonath
Israel
Studies of the structure and function of the ribosome
2008
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Osamu Shimomura
Japan
Discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP
2
Martin Chalfie
United States
Discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP
3
Roger Y. Tsien
United States
Discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP
2007
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Gerhard Ertl
Germany
Studies of chemical processes on solid surfaces
2006
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Roger D. Kornberg
United States
Studies of the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription
2005
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Yves Chauvin
France
Development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis
2
Robert H. Grubbs
United States
Development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis
3
Richard R. Schrock
United States
Development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis
2004
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Aaron Ciechanover
Israel
Discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation
2
Avram Hershko
Israel
Discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation
3
Irwin Rose
United States
Discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation
2003
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Peter Agre
United States
1) Discoveries concerning channels in cell membranes 2) Discovery of water channels
2
Roderick MacKinnon
United States
1) Discoveries concerning channels in cell membranes 2) Structural and mechanistic studies of ion channels
2002
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
John B. Fenn
United States
1) Development of methods for identification and structure analyses of biological macromolecules 2) Development of soft desorption ionization methods for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules
2
Koichi Tanaka
Japan
1) Development of methods for identification and structure analyses of biological macromolecules 2) Development of soft desorption ionization methods for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules
3
Kurt Wüthrich
Switzerland
1) Development of methods for identification and structure analyses of biological macromolecules 2) Development of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy for determining the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules in solution
2001
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
William S. Knowles
United States
Work on chirally catalyzed hydrogenation reactions
2
Ryōji Noyori
Japan
Work on chirally catalyzed hydrogenation reactions
Studies of the transition states of chemical reactions using femtosecond spectroscopy
1998
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Walter Kohn
United States
Development of the density-functional theory
2
John A. Pople
United Kingdom
Development of computational methods in quantum chemistry
1997
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Paul D. Boyer
United States
Elucidation of the enzymatic mechanism underlying the synthesis of Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP)
2
John E. Walker
United Kingdom
Elucidation of the enzymatic mechanism underlying the synthesis of Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP)
3
Jens C. Skou
Denmark
The first discovery of an ion-transporting enzyme, Na+, K+ -ATPase
1996
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Robert F. Curl Jr.
United States
Discovery of fullerenes
2
Sir Harold W. Kroto
United Kingdom
Discovery of fullerenes
3
Richard E. Smalley
United States
Discovery of fullerenes
1995
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Paul J. Crutzen
Netherlands
Work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone
2
Mario J. Molina
Mexico
Work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone
3
F. Sherwood Rowland
United States
Work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone
1994
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
George A. Olah
United States + Hungary
Contribution to carbocation chemistry
1993
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Kary B. Mullis
United States
1) Contributions to the development of methods within DNA-based chemistry 2) Invention of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method
2
Michael Smith
Canada
1) Contributions to the development of methods within DNA-based chemistry 2) Fundamental contributions to the establishment of oligonucleotide-based, site-directed mutagenesis and its development for protein studies
1992
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Rudolph A. Marcus
United States + Canada
Contributions to the theory of electron transfer reactions in chemical systems
1991
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Richard R. Ernst
Switzerland
Contributions to the development of the methodology of high-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy
1990
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Elias James Corey
United States
Development of the theory and methodology of organic synthesis
Determination of the three-dimensional structure of a photosynthetic reaction center
2
Robert Huber
West Germany
Determination of the three-dimensional structure of a photosynthetic reaction center
3
Hartmut Michel
West Germany
Determination of the three-dimensional structure of a photosynthetic reaction center
1987
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Donald J. Cram
United States
Development and use of molecules with structure-specific interactions of high selectivity
2
Jean-Marie Lehn
France
Development and use of molecules with structure-specific interactions of high selectivity
3
Charles J. Pedersen
United States
Development and use of molecules with structure-specific interactions of high selectivity
1986
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Dudley R. Herschbach
United States
Contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elementary processes
2
Yuan T. Lee
United States + Taiwan
Contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elementary processes
3
John C. Polanyi
Canada + Hungary
Contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elementary processes
1985
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Herbert A. Hauptman
United States
Outstanding achievements in developing direct methods for the determination of crystal structures
2
Jerome Karle
United States
Outstanding achievements in developing direct methods for the determination of crystal structures
1984
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Robert Bruce Merrifield
United States
Development of methodology for chemical synthesis on a solid matrix
1983
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Henry Taube
United States
Work on the mechanisms of electron transfer reactions, especially in metal complexes
1982
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Aaron Klug
United Kingdom
Development of crystallographic electron microscopy and his structural elucidation of biologically important nucleic acid-protein complexes
1981
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Kenichi Fukui
Japan
Theories, developed independently, concerning the course of chemical reactions
2
Roald Hoffmann
United States + Poland
Theories, developed independently, concerning the course of chemical reactions
1980
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Paul Berg
United States
Fundamental studies of the biochemistry of nucleic acids, with particular regard to recombinant-DNA
2
Walter Gilbert
United States
Contributions concerning the determination of base sequences in nucleic acids
3
Frederick Sanger
United Kingdom
Contributions concerning the determination of base sequences in nucleic acids
Nobel Prize Winners (1970-1979)
1979
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Herbert C. Brown
United States
Development of the use of boron- and phosphorus-containing compounds, respectively, into important reagents in organic synthesis
2
Georg Wittig
West Germany
Development of the use of boron- and phosphorus-containing compounds, respectively, into important reagents in organic synthesis
1978
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Peter D. Mitchell
United Kingdom
Contribution to the understanding of biological energy transfer through the formulation of the chemiosmotic theory
1977
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Ilya Prigogine
Belgium
Contributions to non-equilibrium thermodynamics, particularly the theory of dissipative structures
1976
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
William N. Lipscomb
United States
Studies on the structure of boranes illuminating problems of chemical bonding
1975
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
John Warcup Cornforth
Australia + United Kingdom
Work on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalyzed reactions
2
Vladimir Prelog
Yugoslavia + Switzerland
Research into the stereochemistry of organic molecules and reactions
1974
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Paul J. Flory
United States
Fundamental work, both theoretical and experimental, in the physical chemistry of macromolecules
1973
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Ernst Otto Fischer
West Germany
Pioneering work, performed independently, on the chemistry of the organometallic, so-called sandwich compounds
2
Geoffrey Wilkinson
United Kingdom
Pioneering work, performed independently, on the chemistry of the organometallic, so-called sandwich compounds
1972
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Christian B. Anfinsen
United States
Work on ribonuclease, especially concerning the connection between the amino acid sequence and the biologically active conformation
2
Stanford Moore
United States
Contribution to the understanding of the connection between chemical structure and catalytic activity of the active center of the ribonuclease molecule
3
William H. Stein
United States
Contribution to the understanding of the connection between chemical structure and catalytic activity of the active center of the ribonuclease molecule
1971
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Gerhard Herzberg
Canada + West Germany
Contributions to the knowledge of electronic structure and geometry of molecules, particularly free radicals
1970
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Luis F. Leloir
Argentina
Discovery of sugar nucleotides and their role in the biosynthesis of carbohydrates
Investigations on the fermentation of sugar and fermentative enzymes
2
Hans Karl August Simon von Euler-Chelpin
Sweden + Germany
Investigations on the fermentation of sugar and fermentative enzymes
1928
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus
Germany
Research into the constitution of the sterols and their connection with the vitamins
1927
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Heinrich Otto Wieland
Germany
Investigations of the constitution of the bile acids and related substances
1926
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
The (Theodor) Svedberg
Sweden
Work on disperse systems
1925
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Richard Adolf Zsigmondy
Germany + Hungary
Demonstration of the heterogeneous nature of colloid solutions and the methods he used
1923
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Fritz Pregl
Austria + Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The invention of the method of micro-analysis of organic substances
1922
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Francis William Aston
United Kingdom
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
1921
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Frederick Soddy
United Kingdom
Contributions to our knowledge of the chemistry of radioactive substances, and his investigations into the origin and nature of isotopes
1920
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Walther Hermann Nernst
Germany
Work in thermochemistry
Nobel Prize Winners (1910-1919)
1918
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Fritz Haber
Germany
Synthesis of ammonia from its elements
1915
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Richard Martin Willstätter
Germany
Research on plant pigments, especially chlorophyll
1914
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Theodore William Richards
United States
His accurate determinations of the atomic weight of a large number of chemical elements
1913
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Alfred Werner
Switzerland
Work on the linkage of atoms in molecules especially in inorganic chemistry
1912
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Victor Grignard
France
Discovery of the Grignard reagent
2
Paul Sabatier
France
His method of hydrogenating organic compounds in the presence of finely disintegrated metals
1911
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Maria Skłodowska-Curie
Poland + France
Discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element
1910
No.
Recipient
Citizenship
Reason
1
Otto Wallach
Germany
His services to organic chemistry and the chemical industry by his pioneer work in the field of alicyclic compounds
