3rd Nobel Prize in Chemistry: Svante August Arrhenius

The 1903 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Svante August Arrhenius "for his extraordinary services to the advancement of chemistry by means of the electrolytic dissociation theory." Svante August Arrhenius was born on 19 February 1859. Showing a talent for arithmetic calculations from an early age, Svante entered Uppsala University in 1876 to study mathematics, chemistry and physics. In 1881, he went to Stockholm to work with Professor E. Edlund at the Academy of Sciences. Beginning his academic career by assisting Edlund with research on electromotive force measurements in spark discharges, Svante August Arrhenius soon turned to his own area of interest and prepared his thesis entitled "Recherches sur la conductibilité galvanique des électrolytes" (Research on the galvanic conductivity of electrolytes). From the results obtained, the scientist concluded that when electrolytes dissolve in water, they dissociate or separate into positively and negatively charged ions to varying degrees. The degree to which this dissociation occurs depended primarily on the nature of the substance and its concentration in the solution. [caption id="attachment_152712" align="aligncenter"] Svante August Arrhenius[/caption] The value of Arrhenius' publication was not well understood by the Faculty of Science at Uppsala. On the other hand, Otto Pettersson, Chemistry Professor at Stockholms Högskola, met with the young scientist Arrhenius. The fundamental importance of Arrhenius' work was thus clarified, and at the end of 1884 he received his doctorate in physical chemistry at Uppsala, marking a first in Sweden in this new scientific field. Under Edlund's influence, in 1886 he won a travelling fellowship from the Academy of Sciences that enabled him to work with Ostwald in Riga and Kohlrausch in Würzburg. In 1887 he was with Boltzmann in Graz, and in 1888 he worked with van 't Hoff in Amsterdam. During these years, Arrhenius was able to prove the effect of electrolytic dissociation on osmotic pressure, the lowering of freezing point, and the elevation of boiling point of solutions containing electrolytes. Later, he examined its significance in connection with biological problems such as the relationship between toxins and antitoxins, serum therapy, digestion and absorption, as well as gastric and pancreatic juices. The great importance of the electrolytic dissociation theory is today universally accepted, although some modifications were found necessary. Arrhenius also applied physicochemical principles to studies in meteorology, cosmology and biochemistry. In meteorology, he anticipated the scientific conclusion that increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere would cause global warming. Svante Arrhenius made important contributions to our understanding of the greenhouse effect and the role of greenhouse gases in Earth's climate. In 1896, he published an article titled "On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground" proposing that an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide from human activities could lead to global warming. Arrhenius suggested that carbon dioxide, water vapor and other gases in the Earth's atmosphere act like a greenhouse by trapping heat from the sun and preventing it from escaping back to space. He calculated that doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration could increase global temperatures by 5-6 degrees Celsius. Arrhenius' ideas were groundbreaking and laid the foundation for much of our modern understanding of the greenhouse effect and climate change. Despite being offered opportunities to move to other European universities and to give important lectures at universities in the United States, Arrhenius always returned to Stockholm. In 1903, he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and in 1905 he became director of the newly established Nobel Institute for Physical Chemistry. During the First World War, he made successful efforts to secure the release and return to their countries of German and Austrian scientists held as prisoners of war. Arrhenius, who was married twice, had one son from his first marriage and one son and two daughters from his second marriage. He died in Stockholm on 2 October 1927 and was buried in Uppsala.   References • Nobel Lectures, Chemistry 1901-1921, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1966 • https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/svante-august-arrhenius • https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Arrhenius • https://nationalmaglab.org/magnet-academy/history-of-electricity-magnetism/pioneers/svante-arrhenius/ • https://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/en/uniarchiv/personalities/eminent-scholars/svante-arrhenius/