Our current hero is a very unusual person (by the way, are there ordinary Nobel laureates). Since childhood, he was fascinated by chemistry and achieved his goal, having managed to create a backlog for at least three Nobel Prizes in its various fields in a short life. At the same time, he actively used his authority so that his colleagues would also not be left without a prize. So meet: Jacob Hendrick Van Goff.
The wording of the Nobel Committee: “In recognition of the great importance of discovering the laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure in solutions” (in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by the discovery of the laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure in solutions).
In the biography of the first Nobel laureate in chemistry, Jacob Henrik Vant-Hoff, there is one detail characteristic of the youth of many scientists - a conflict with parents. Dad wants his son to receive a monetary profession, his son (the third of seven children) loves poetry, philosophy and chemistry. In the case of Jacob Hendrick Want-Hoff Sr., such rigidity was strange: he himself was not only a doctor, but also an outstanding lover and expert on Shakespeare. But neither the enthusiasm for philosophy, nor the numerous chemical experiments at home, nor the idol Byron, to whom Vant-Hoff literally prayed, helped, and at the behest of his father, Jacob Hendrik Vant-Goff, Jr. went to study engineering.
In principle, now, of course, the educational institution chosen by the father would be very prestigious: the Polytechnic School in Delft has turned into a powerful Delft Technical University, the experience of which, for example, is actively used by our MIPT. But then it was more like a vocational school.
Van Goff entered in 1869. He had three years to complete all courses and pass the exam. Vant-Hoff managed for two, having passed the exam on July 8 and received a specialty - a surprise! - chemical technologist. Apparently, parents surrendered here, and, having worked a bit at the sugar factory, Van Hoff went to the university. He entered Leiden, at the Faculty of Natural Mathematics, but quickly realized that mathematics (pure), with all his love of computing, was “not his”, and chemistry “didn’t let go”.
And our hero went to study chemistry in Bonn, and under the guidance not of anyone, but of Friedrich Kekule himself (for those who forgot the school curriculum, we recall that chemists of the sixties were very fond of sleeping and having scientific dreams. Mendeleev saw in 1869 his periodic the law, and Kekule saw dancing monkeys, which led him in 1865 to the correct formula of benzene in the form of a hexagon).
It is important for us that Kekule was the author of the very concept and term “valency”, as well as the author of the definition of carbon as a tetravalent element. That is, from the very beginning of his journey in professional chemistry, Vant-Hoff found himself at the epicenter of nascent organic chemistry, which already had a large number of accumulated problems that needed to be solved.
Friedrich August Kekule, 1890s
Wikmedia commons
Already at the beginning of the 19th century, an amazing scientist, physicist, geographer, surveyor, astronomer, balloonist Jean-Baptiste Bio was surprised that solutions of certain substances could rotate the plane of polarization of the transmitted polarized light. Moreover, substances that are completely identical in composition can vary: some rotate this plane to the left, others rotate to the right. Almost half a century later, in 1848, another great Frenchman, Louis Pasteur, suggested that the molecules of such substances are mirror images of each other.
And two years after the start of his scientific and academic career in chemistry, Vant-Hoff published an article entitled “An attempt to spread the existing structural chemical formulas into [three-dimensional] space. With a note on the relationship between optical activity and the chemical structure of organic compounds. " On 11 pages, Van Hoff publishes an ingenious conjecture: the carbon atom is a tetrahedron. The atom itself is at the center of this three-dimensional figure, and the four bonds (remember the Kekule postulate) that it forms are directed to its vertices. Thus, if carbon has four different substituents, then the mirror reflection of such a molecule will be a different molecule, the reflections will be incompatible in space, like a glove on the right and left hands.
Wikimedia commons
Thus began the scientific biography of Van Goff. However, it simply was not. I had to earn tutoring, give private lessons and look for a place in academic institutions. In 1876 it was found. First, it became the Royal Veterinary (!) School in Utrecht, then - finally - Van Hoff became a professor at the University of Amsterdam.
As for the theory ... The theory of Vant Hoff (and his associate at the University of Paris Joseph Achille Le Bel), was accepted, as usual, with hostility. Even the “co-promoter” of tetravalent carbon (together with Kekule), Hermann Kolbe, called the work “fantastic nonsense, completely devoid of any factual basis and completely incomprehensible to a serious researcher”.
An even more caustic quote from Kolbe can be cited: “Dr. Van Hoff from the Veterinary School in Utrecht apparently does not like sympathy for accurate chemical research. He sees it rather as the saddling of Pegasus (apparently borrowed from the veterinary school) and announces in his work how, like his bold flight to the top of the chemical Parnassus, atoms appeared to him located in outer space. "
Who turned out to be right can be judged by anyone who has reached organics in a school chemistry course. And Vant-Hoff had to wait six years: in 1880, his theory was recognized by very influential scientists, Johann Wislicenus and Victor Meyer. And it was from this that modern stereochemistry began (as a result of work in this direction, the “Nobel” was brought to Vladimir Prelog in 1978).
Victor Meyer, approx. 1880
Wikimedia commons
But at this time, Vant-Hoff had already left organics and was busy with where serious scientists, in general, had not yet meddled in, in studying the speed of chemical reactions.
The experimenter's excellent gift and passion for mathematics allowed him to introduce the laws of thermodynamics into chemistry. First, the Vant-Hoff rule appears (with a temperature increase of 10 degrees, the reaction rate increases 2-4 times), and then the more complex equations of chemical kinetics. By the way, our only “Nobel” in chemistry is a continuation of the work of Vant-Hoff. Nikolai Nikolayevich Semenov dedicated his monograph Chain Reactions precisely to the memory of Svante Arrhenius and Jacob Vant-Hoff.
Svante Arrhenius
Wikipedia commons
In 1884, his work Études de Dynamique chimique (Experiments in Chemical Dynamics) was published. Then he studied diluted solutions and thereby laid the foundations of the future theory of electrolytic dissociation of Svante Arrhenius (later they will work together and Arrhenius will become the third Nobel laureate in chemistry), while carefully studying such an important phenomenon for physics (and biology) as osmotic pressure. There was a lot of work, and that is why I had to leave Amsterdam: Van Goff did not want to teach and do administrative work.
Since 1896, he lived in Berlin, and again changed the field of work, approaching geology already. He studied oceanic deposits in Stockfurt. Again, this is written in academic books. But this is one of the largest potash deposits in the world, which provided potassium to the entire ceramic, soap-making, optical industry in Germany and potash fertilizers - its agriculture. And from studying the Paleozoic rocks, Vant-Hoff again moved to a new area - to biochemistry. He was one of the first chemists to study enzymes and the kinetics of their work.
The twentieth century came, and the Nobel Committee began to make its first choice. The nominations for the first chemistry prize were 20. 11 of them were Van Goff. Therefore, the choice of a winner, as in the nomination in physics, was obvious. True, of the "losers" of 1901, Emil Fischer, Svante Arrhenius, and Henri Moissan were also able to receive their prizes in the next five years. Vant-Hoff himself 16 times proposed his candidacy to the Nobel Committee, and not only in chemistry. And very often - successfully. Arrhenius, Rayleigh, Ramsay, Max Planck, Lenard - all of them were nominated by Van Goff (though not all received a prize from his nomination). It is a pity that neither in 1905 nor in 1906 did the committee listen to the first winner and did not award the prize to Dmitry Mendeleev. This would be a worthy end to the life of Van Goff, who died of tuberculosis in 1911. Alas, another Nobel laureate, Zelman Waxman, then only a year left Odessa and lived on a sisters' farm. In 1911, an effective means of combating consumption did not yet exist.
(1852-1911) dutch chemist and physicist
The development of chemistry is inconceivable without the discoveries of Jacob Hendrik Vant-Hoff, who created a whole system of sciences - stereochemistry, chemical kinetics, physical chemistry. He was one of the first to understand that it was the combination of two fundamental sciences - physics and chemistry - that made it possible to take a fresh look at the simplest phenomena and objects.
Jacob Hendrick Van Hoff was born in Rotterdam, in the family of a successful doctor, who was also a well-known expert in Shakespeare in Holland. Jacob was the third of seven children born in the family. Initially, he showed abilities in mathematics and only in the city high school did he change this attachment. Jacob made friends with a chemistry teacher and became a regular in a small school laboratory. And in the last class, he already worked in the home laboratory, which he himself equipped in the barn.
Finishing school, Jacob dreamed of a chemist career. However, parents, considering the research work unpromising, persuaded their son to start studying engineering at the Polytechnic School in Delft. In just two years, Van Hoff completed a three-year training program and passed the final exam best of all. There he became interested in philosophy, mathematics and poetry (especially the works of George Byron).
After working for a short time at the sugar factory, the young man realized that he should continue his education. He went to Leiden and in 1871 became a student in the natural-mathematical faculty of Leiden University. However, the very next year he moved to Bonn University to study chemistry under the guidance of Friedrich August Kekule. Two years later, the future scientist continued his studies at the University of Paris at L. Wurz, where he completed work on the dissertation. Returning to the Netherlands, he introduced her to the defense at the University of Utrecht.
Jacob Vant-Hoff was carried away by the study of the phenomenon of polarization of light. At the very beginning of the 19th century, the French physicist Jean-Baptiste Bio noticed that the crystalline forms of certain chemicals can change the direction of the rays of polarized light passing through them.
Observations showed that some molecules (they were called optical isomers) rotate the plane of light in the direction opposite to that in which other molecules rotate, although the first and second are molecules of the same type and consist of the same number of atoms.
In an effort to explain the cause of this phenomenon, Louis Pasteur, as early as 1848, hypothesized that such molecules are mirror images of each other and that the atoms in them are located in three dimensions. Many scientists disagreed with Pasteur, considering his hypothesis too fantastic. Jacob Vant-Hoff decided to take up her test.
In 1874, a few months before defending his dissertation, the young scientist published a short article, where he not only justified the validity of Pasteur's theory, but also proposed a more precise version of it.
Jacob Vant-Hoff suggested that the optical activity of organic compounds is associated with an asymmetric molecular structure, with the carbon atom located in the center of the tetrahedron, and atoms or groups of atoms located at its four corners are different from each other. Thus, the interchange of atoms or groups of atoms located in the corners of the tetrahedron can lead to the appearance of molecules that are identical in chemical composition, but which are mirror images of each other in structure. This explains the differences in their optical properties.
At first, no one paid attention to this article. The frustration was so great that Van Goff even wanted to give up defending his dissertation.
However, just two months later, a similar work by the acquaintance of Vant-Hoffe at the Paris University of Jean Le Bel was published in France. Regardless of Van Goff, he came to the same conclusions. Obtaining the same results gave Jacob Van Hoff confidence in his abilities, and he resumed his research.
The experiments not only confirmed the validity of his conclusions, but also made it possible to build an integral concept of polarization, called the Van Hoff – Le Bel theory. But convincing scientists of its correctness was not easy.
After reading the article by Jacob Hendrik Vant-Hoff, the famous German chemist Hermann Kolbe called it "fantastic nonsense, completely devoid of any factual basis and completely incomprehensible to a serious researcher."
As a result, Vant-Goff, always painfully experiencing any criticism, did not dare to present it as a doctoral dissertation. He postponed research on polarization and wrote a dissertation on cyanoacetic and malonic acids, and in 1874 received his doctorate in chemistry.
The discovery of the scientist was recognized only after two years. It was then that the work of Jacob Vant-Hoff was translated into French and German. Scientists began to repeat his experiments and one after another recognized the correctness of the theory. Over time, it formed the basis of modern stereochemistry - a field of chemistry that studies the spatial structure of molecules.
The formation of the scientific career of Jacob Hendrick Van Hoff was slow. At first he had to give private lessons in chemistry and physics, and only in 1876 he received the post of lecturer in physics at the Royal Veterinary School in Utrecht.
The following year, the scientist becomes a lecturer (and later professor) of theoretical and physical chemistry at the University of Amsterdam. Over the next 18 years, Vant-Hoff gave five lectures on organic chemistry and one lecture on mineralogy, crystallography, geology and paleontology, and also led a chemical laboratory.
Unlike most chemists of his time, Jacob Vant-Hoff had a thorough mathematical training. It was useful to a scientist when he took on the difficult task of studying the speed of reactions and the conditions that affect chemical equilibrium.
As a result of the work done, the scientist classified chemical reactions depending on the number of molecules involved in them as monomolecular, bimolecular and multimolecular, and also determined the order of chemical reactions for many compounds.
Jacob Hendrik Vant-Hoff became the first chemist who applied the principles of thermodynamics in this science. This technique made it possible to explain the reason for the mobile equilibrium arising as a result of temperature changes. Then he introduced the generally accepted designation for the reversibility of a reaction with two arrows pointing in opposite directions. Vant-Hoff set out the results of his research in the book Essays on Chemical Dynamics, published in 1884.
In 1811, the Italian physicist Amedeo Avogadro established that equal volumes of any gases at the same temperature and pressure contain the same number of molecules. Van Toff experimentally checked this law and came to the conclusion that it is valid for dilute solutions. His discovery was very important, since all chemical and metabolic reactions inside living things occur in solutions.
Carrying out the experiments, the scientist established some patterns inherent in osmotic pressure. It turned out that with its help it is possible to characterize the behavior of two different solutions located on both sides of the membrane, tending to equalize the concentration. The scientist also found that diluted solutions obey the theory of electrolytic dissociation.
In 1878, Jacob Vant-Hoff married the daughter of Rotterdam merchant Johannes Francine Mees. They had two daughters and two sons.
Van Goff's fame grew, and many universities offered him the post of professor. Now the scientist could choose the most convenient and prestigious place of work. But he refused to leave Holland. In gratitude, the leadership of the University of Amsterdam allocated funds for the construction of a new chemical laboratory for him.
But a few years later, Jacob Vant-Hoff realized that lectures and administrative duties interfere with full-fledged scientific work. Therefore, he accepted the offer of the University of Berlin and took the place of professor of experimental physics.
However, soon after numerous requests from students, he had to resume lecturing. Usually he devoted lecture work one day a week, and the rest of the days he worked in a specially equipped laboratory. Although Van Hoff was not a brilliant lecturer, crowds of students and young scientists from all over Europe gathered at his classes. Indeed, in the lectures of the scientist always contained new ideas and information for scientific research.
In Berlin, Jacob Hendrik Vant-Hoff began to use physical chemistry to solve geological problems. He used his technique, for example, when analyzing oceanic salt deposits in Stasfurt.
Studying the processes of their formation, the scientist began to deal with the problems of biochemistry, in particular, the study of enzymes that served as catalysts for the chemical changes necessary for the activity of living organisms.
In his free time, Van Hoff preferred his first hobbies, was interested in poetry and philosophy. The only form of relaxation for him was communication with nature: every weekend scientist sought to get out of the city.
In 1901, Jacob Hendrik Vant-Hoff became the first ever Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, which was awarded to him "in recognition of the great importance of his discovery of the laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure in solutions."
Now we can say that the ideas of Jacob Vant-Hoff determined the development of this science for many years to come. Perhaps he would enrich chemistry with new discoveries, but he suddenly became ill with tuberculosis and died in a hospital in a suburb of Berlin.
The temperature dependence of the rate of a chemical reaction is determined by the Van Goff rule.
The Dutch chemist Vant-Hoff Jacob Hendrick, the founder of stereochemistry, in 1901 became the first Nobel Prize winner in chemistry. She was awarded to him for the discovery of the laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure. Van Goff introduced the spatial structure of chemicals. He was sure that progress in fundamental and applied research in chemistry could be achieved using physical and mathematical methods. Having developed the doctrine of the rate of reactions, he created chemical kinetics.
So, the kinetics of chemical reactions is the doctrine of the flow rate, what kind of chemical interaction occurs during the reactions, and the dependence of reactions on various factors. For various reactions, the flow rate is different.
Chemical reaction rate directly depends on the nature of the chemicals that react. Some substances, such as NaOH and HCl, are able to react in fractions of a second. And some chemical reactions last for years. An example of such a reaction is iron rusting.
The reaction rate also depends on the concentration of the reacting substances. The higher the concentration of reagents, the higher the reaction rate. During the reaction, the concentration of reagents decreases, therefore, the reaction rate slows down. That is, at the initial moment the speed is always higher than at any subsequent one.
V \u003d (C con - C beg) / (t con - t beg)
Reagent concentrations are determined at regular intervals.
An important factor on which the reaction rate depends is temperature.
All molecules collide with others. The number of collisions per second is very large. But, nevertheless, chemical reactions do not proceed at an enormous rate. This happens because during the reaction, the molecules must assemble into an activated complex. And only active molecules whose kinetic energy is enough for this can form it. With a small number of active molecules, the reaction proceeds slowly. With increasing temperature, the number of active molecules increases. Consequently, the reaction rate will be higher.
Vant-Hoff believed that the rate of a chemical reaction is a natural change in the concentration of reacting substances per unit time. But it is not always uniform.
The Van Goff rule states that with increasing temperature for every 10 about the speed of the chemical reaction increases by 2-4 times .
Mathematically, the Van Goff rule looks like this:
where V 2 t 2, a V 1 - reaction rate at temperature t 1;
ɣ - temperature coefficient of reaction rate. This coefficient is the ratio of the rate constants at temperature t + 10 and t.
So if ɣ \u003d 3, and at 0 ° C the reaction lasts 10 minutes, then at 100 ° C it will last only 0.01 seconds. A sharp increase in the rate of a chemical reaction is explained by an increase in the number of active molecules with increasing temperature.
The Vant-Hoff rule is applicable only in the temperature range of 10-400 o C. Do not obey the Vant-Hoff rule and reactions in which large molecules participate.
The chemist Jacob Hendrik Vant-Hoff was one of those scientists for whom science was a real passion and the meaning of life. Even in early childhood, having felt his true calling, he did not step back a step, working tirelessly, perfecting himself both as a scientist and as a person. The peak of recognition of his work in the scientific field was the receipt of the Nobel Prize, as well as well-deserved respect in the scientific world.
Van Goff is considered one of the most significant figures that influenced the development and formation of chemistry as a science.
Van Goff was born into a revered and intelligent Dutch family, in which, however, his intentions to become a scientist were not very welcome. The hometown of the future chemist was Rotterdam, in which he was born on August 30, 1852. The family was big. Jacob was the third child, after him four more were born. Jacob's father was a fairly successful practicing physician, while he had a very interesting hobby - he was known as a fine connoisseur and connoisseur of Shakespeare's work. Therefore, literature was traditionally loved in the house, and the growing Jacob absorbed this love. In particular, Byron's work had a great influence on him.
Jacob's first educational institution was the city secondary school in Rotterdam. Teachers immediately noticed Jacob's extraordinary ability to master the exact sciences, as well as a passionate love for poetry.
Parents, also seeing the giftedness of their son, dreamed of his brilliant career as an engineer. When Jacob began to show interest in chemical experiments and outlined for himself the future of the scientist, his relatives reacted to such zeal rather coolly, considering his scientific career not too promising. Therefore, contrary to the wishes of the son, the parents insisted on his admission to the Polytechnic School, located in Delft.
A talented young man should be given credit, because without a particular passion for mastering the engineering profession, he could become the best graduate of the school on the course. This allowed Jacob to enter the prestigious Leiden University in 1871 without passing the entrance exams. But, having studied here at the Faculty of Natural Mathematics, Jacob realized that studying mathematics was not his way. Therefore, after only one year of study, Vant-Hoff decides to transfer to a university in Bonn in order to study chemistry so beloved. The head of the young student was the talented and already made a name for himself scientist Friedrich Kekule.
Two years spent in Bonn in scientific research under the leadership of Kekule, brought the young chemist Jacob Van Hoff the first significant achievement - he discovered the propionic acid, which is now used for the production of certain drugs and herbicides. Seeing in Vant Hoff a promising scientist, Kekule advises him to continue his scientific activity in Paris, under the supervision of Professor Charles Adolf Würz, a well-known specialist in the field of organic synthesis.
The result of his work in Paris was the writing of a doctoral dissertation, which Vant-Hoff successfully defended at the University of Utrecht, becoming at the age of 22 years a doctor of science.
A great resonance in the scientific world of that time was made by an article written by Vant-Hoff in which he explained the phenomenon of a change in the direction of motion of a light beam, discovered back in the early 19th century, when passing through some chemical substances that have the form of crystals. According to Vant-Hoff, such a change in the flux of light in a molecule is caused by the appearance of special isomers, which are mirror with respect to each other. As often happens in the scientific world, almost simultaneously with Vant-Hoff, his colleague La Belle proposed this theory, while both scientists came to the same conclusions, working independently of each other. To some chemists, this theory seemed almost ridiculous and divorced from reality, but, despite this, in the end it served as one of the foundations for a new science of stereochemistry, the field of study of which is the spatial structure of molecules.
Despite the very extraordinary abilities and innovative approach to research, Van Hoff's career as a chemical scientist did not develop very rapidly. For some time, the main source of his income was private lessons in physics and chemistry, which did not contribute to the prosperity of Van Goff as a serious scientist. Later, in the same Utrecht, he receives an invitation to the post of professor of physics at school, and after a year he takes the place of a lecturer at the University of Amsterdam, a little later becoming a professor in it. He devoted many years to his work here, regularly lecturing and conducting research.
I must say that the success and achievements of Vant-Hoff were greatly facilitated by his thorough professional knowledge in the field of mathematics, which not every chemist possessed. This allowed the scientist from a new perspective to approach the solution of many problems, eventually reaching such significant heights in scientific activity. The Nobel Prize awarded to him in 1901 was the result of recognition of the invaluable importance of his work in the field of chemical dynamics in the 80s of the 19th century, on the theme of which Van Hoff created one of his most famous works, Essays on Chemical Dynamics.
In the late 80s, Van Hoff became one of the founders of the Journal of Physical Chemistry. At this time, a well-known scientist was the desired candidate for professorships at various universities, in particular, he received an offer to become a professor at the prosperous University of Leipzig.
However, Vant-Hoff was in no hurry with the decision, since the leadership of the university in Amsterdam at that time was planning the construction of a new chemical laboratory. However, soon the scientist decides to nevertheless accept one of the proposals, eventually moving to Berlin to work at the prestigious and famous university of the German capital. Here, Vant-Hoff received at his disposal excellent laboratory equipment and was able to freely and completely surrender to his beloved work.
The field of scientific research of the eminent Dutchman at that time was physical chemistry, he was also engaged in the study of enzymes. The results of all his works greatly influenced the development of chemistry as a science, and the Nobel Prize received was the first awarded to a chemist.
Back in 1878, Van Hoff married Johann Francine Mees, who, like him, was from Rotterdam. They had four children - two sons and two daughters.
The scientist spent the rest of his life living and working in Germany. He was a member of many scientific organizations and had honorary degrees not only in European, but also in American universities. In addition to the scientific activities that his whole life was devoted to, Jacob Van't-Hoff never ceased to admire art, in particular, poetry so dear to him. Also very fond of philosophy, loved to spend time in nature.
the cause of the death of the scientist was tuberculosis, at that time one of the very common and most dangerous diseases. The great scientist died on March 1, 1911 in the German Steglitz (today - one of the districts of Berlin).
For us, the relevance and reliability of the information is important. If you find a mistake or inaccuracy, please let us know. Highlight the error and press the key combination Ctrl + Enter .
(30.VIII 1852 - 1.III 1911)
Dutch chemist. Born in Rotterdam. He graduated from the Polytechnic School in Delft (1871). He improved his education at the Leiden and Bonn (at F. A. Kekul) universities, the Higher School of Medicine in Paris (y. S. A. Würz) and Utrecht University (Ph.D., 1874). Since 1876 he worked at the Veterinary School in Utrecht, in 1878-1896. - Professor of Amsterdam, in 1896 - 1911 - Berlin universities.
One of the founders of physical chemistry and stereochemistry. Having examined various cases of the optical isomerism of organic compounds, for the first time simultaneously with J. A. Le Belem and independently formulated (1874) the theory of the spatial arrangement of atoms in the molecules of organic compounds, which underlies modern stereochemistry. He put forward ideas about the orientation of carbon affinity units at the angles of a tetrahedron, the presence of two stereoisomers of a compound containing a carbon atom with four different substituents, and the rib compound of tetrahedra in the presence of a double bond. Predicted isomerism of allen compounds. He came up with a rule according to which the molecular rotation of a compound with several asymmetric centers is the algebraic sum of the fractions of the molecular rotations of asymmetric centers, the so-called rotors (Vant-Hoff principle of optical additivity). He studied (since the 1880s) the kinetics of reactions and chemical affinity. He proposed a classification of chemical reactions. Found that with a temperature increase of 10 ° C, the reaction rate increases 2-4 times (Vant-Hoff rule). Derived one of the basic equations of chemical thermodynamics - the isochore equation expressing the dependence of the equilibrium constant on temperature and thermal effect, as well as the chemical isotherm equation expressing the dependence of chemical affinity on the reaction equilibrium constant at constant temperature. Published (1884) the work "Essays on Chemical Dynamics", in which he formulated the basic postulates of chemical kinetics. For the first time, he suggested evaluating the reactivity of substances using the reaction rate constant, which translated the main thesis of structural chemistry — the dependence of reactivity on structure — onto quantitative rails in the framework of chemical kinetics. He laid the foundations of the quantitative theory of dilute solutions (1886 - 1889), showing that dissolved substances are similar to substances in a gaseous state and that simple laws (including the Avogadro law) can be applied to diluted solutions. Derived the law of osmotic pressure (Van Goff law). He extended (1890) his ideas about solutions to homogeneous solid mixtures, laying the foundations of the theory of solid solutions. He extended the analogy between polymorphic transformations and the transition from one state of aggregation to another into double salts.
Member of several academies of sciences and scientific societies. Foreign Corr. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (since 1895).
Nobel Prize (1901).
