The committee and institution serving as the selection board for the prize typically announce the names of the laureates in October. The prize is then awarded at formal ceremonies held annually on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death. "The highlight of the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Stockholm is when each Nobel Laureate steps forward to receive the prize from the hands of His Majesty the King of Sweden. ... Under the eyes of a watching world, the Nobel Laureate receives three things: a diploma, a medal and a document confirming the prize amount" ("What the Nobel Laureates Receive"). Later the Nobel Banquet is held in Stockholm City Hall.
A maximum of three laureates and two different works may be selected. The award can be given to a maximum of three recipients per year. It consists of a gold medal, a diploma, and a cash grant. The grant is currently approximately 10 million SEK, slightly more than €1 million (US$1.4 million).
Compared with some other prizes, the Nobel Prize nomination and selection process is long and rigorous, a key reason why it has become the most important prize in chemistry.
The Nobel Laureates in chemistry are selected by a committee that consists of five members elected by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In its first stage, several thousand people are asked to nominate candidates. These names are scrutinized and discussed by experts until only the winners remain. This slow and thorough process, insisted upon by Alfred Nobel, is arguably what gives the prize its importance.
Forms, which amount to a personal and exclusive invitation, are sent to about three thousand selected individuals to invite them to submit nominations. The names of the nominees are never publicly announced, and neither are they told that they have been considered for the Prize. Nomination records are sealed for fifty years. In practice some nominees do become known. It is also common for publicists to make such a claim, founded or not.
The nominations are screened by committee, and a list is produced of approximately two hundred preliminary candidates. This list is forwarded to selected experts in the field. They remove all but approximately fifteen names. The committee submits a report with recommendations to the appropriate institution.
While posthumous nominations are not permitted, awards can occur if the individual died in the months between the nomination and the decision of the prize committee.
The award in chemistry require that the significance of achievements being recognized is "tested by time." In practice it means that the lag between the discovery and the award is typically on the order of 20 years and can be much longer. As a downside of this approach, not all scientists live long enough for their work to be recognized. Some important scientific discoveries are never considered for a Prize, as the discoverers may have died by the time the impact of their work is realized.
The following chart is assembled from the official list on the website of the Nobel Foundation ("All Nobel Laureates in Chemistry").
Year
| Name
| Nationality
| Citation
|
1901
| Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff
| Netherlands
| "for his discovery of the laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure in solutions"
|
1902
| Hermann Emil Fischer
| Germany
| "for his work on sugar and purine syntheses"
|
1903
| Svante August Arrhenius
| Sweden
| "for his electrolytic theory of dissociation"
|
1904
| Sir William Ramsay
| United Kingdom
| "for his discovery of the inert gaseous elements in air"
|
1905
| Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer
| Germany
| "for his work on organic dyes and hydroaromatic compounds"
|
1906
| Henri Moissan
| France
| "for his investigation and isolation of the element fluorine, and for the electric furnace named after him"
|
1907
| Eduard Buchner
| Germany
| "for his biochemical research and his discovery of cell-free fermentation"
|
1908
| Ernest Rutherford
| New Zealand United Kingdom
| "for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances"
|
1909
| Wilhelm Ostwald
| Germany
| "his work on catalysis and for his investigations into chemical equilibria and rates of reaction"
|
1910
| Otto Wallach
| Germany
| "for his work in the field of alicyclic compounds"
|
1911
| Maria Skłodowska-Curie
| Poland France
| "for her discovery of radium and polonium "
|
1912
| Victor Grignard
| France
| "for his the discovery of the Grignard reagent"
|
Paul Sabatier
| France
| "for his method of hydrogenating organic compounds"
|
1913
| Alfred Werner
| Switzerland
| "for his work on the linkage of atoms in molecules"
|
1914
| Theodore William Richards
| United States
| "for his determinations of the atomic weight of a large number of elements"
|
1915
| Richard Martin Willstätter
| Germany
| "for his research on plant pigments"
|
1916
| no award
|
|
|
1917
| no award
|
|
|
1918
| Fritz Haber
| Germany
| "for his synthesis of ammonia"
|
1919
| no award
|
|
|
1920
| Walther Hermann Nernst
| Germany
| "for his work in thermochemistry"
|
1921
| Frederick Soddy
| United Kingdom
| "for his work on the chemistry of radioactive substances and investigations into isotopes"
|
1922
| Francis William Aston
| United Kingdom
| "for his discovery of isotopes in a large number of non-radioactive elements, and for his whole-number rule"
|
1923
| Fritz Pregl
| Austria
| "for his invention of the method of micro-analysis of organic substances"
|
1925
| Richard Adolf Zsigmondy
| Germany
| "for his demonstration of the heterogeneous nature of colloid solutions and the methods used"
|
1926
| Theodor Svedberg
| Sweden
| "for his work on disperse systems"
|
1927
| Heinrich Otto Wieland
| Germany
| "for his investigations of the bile acids and related substances"
|
1928
| Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus
| Germany
| "for his research into sterols and their connection with vitamins"
|
1929
| Arthur Harden Hans Karl August Simon von Euler-Chelpin
| United Kingdom Sweden
| "for their investigations on the fermentation of sugar and fermentative enzymes"
|
1930
| Hans Fischer
| Germany
| "for his research into haemin and chlorophyll"
|
1931
| Carl Bosch Friedrich Bergius
| Germany Germany
| "for their contributions to chemical high pressure methods"
|
1932
| Irving Langmuir
| United States
| "for his work in surface chemistry"
|
1934
| Harold Clayton Urey
| United States
| "for his discovery of heavy hydrogen"
|
1935
| Frédéric Joliot Irene Joliot-Curie
| France France
| "for their synthesis of new radioactive elements"
|
1936
| Petrus (Peter) Josephus Wilhelmus Debye
| Netherlands
| "for his work on molecular structure through investigations on dipole moments and the diffraction of X-rays and electrons in gases"
|
1937
| Walter Norman Haworth
| United Kingdom
| "for his work on carbohydrates and vitamin C"
|
Paul Karrer
| Switzerland
| "for his work on carotenoids, flavins and vitamins A and B2"
|
1938
| Richard Kuhn
| Germany
| "for his work on carotenoids and vitamins"
|
1939
| Adolf Friedrich Johann Butenandt
| Germany
| "for his work on sex hormones"
|
Leopold Ružička
| Switzerland
| "for his work on polymethylenes and higher terpenes"
|
1940
| no award
|
|
|
1941
| no award
|
|
|
1942
| no award
|
|
|
1943
| George de Hevesy
| Hungary
| "for his work on the use of isotopes as tracers to study chemical processes"
|
1944
| Otto Hahn
| Germany
| "for his discovery of the fission of heavy nuclei"
|
1945
| Artturi Ilmari Virtanen
| Finland
| "for his research and inventions in agricultural and nutrition chemistry, especially for his fodder preservation method"
|
1946
| James Batcheller Sumner
| United States
| "for his discovery that enzymes can be crystallized"
|
John Howard Northrop Wendell Meredith Stanley
| United States United States
| "for their preparation of enzymes and virus proteins in a pure form"
|
1947
| Sir Robert Robinson
| United Kingdom
| "for his investigations on plant products, especially the alkaloids"
|
1948
| Arne Wilhelm Kaurin Tiselius
| Sweden
| "for his research on electrophoresis and adsorption analysis"
|
1949
| William Francis Giauque
| United States
| "for his contributions in the field of chemical thermodynamics"
|
1950
| Otto Paul Hermann Diels Kurt Alder
| West Germany West Germany
| "for their discovery and development of the diene synthesis. Diels-Alder reaction."
|
1951
| Edwin Mattison McMillan Glenn Theodore Seaborg
| United States United States
| "for their discoveries in the chemistry of transuranium elements"
|
1952
| Archer John Porter Martin Richard Laurence Millington Synge
| United Kingdom United Kingdom
| "for their invention of partition chromatography"
|
1953
| Hermann Staudinger
| West Germany
| "for his discoveries in the field of macromolecular chemistry"
|
1954
| Linus Carl Pauling
| United States
| "for his research into the nature of the chemical bond"
|
1955
| Vincent du Vigneaud
| United States
| "for his work on sulphur compounds, especially the first synthesis of a polypeptide hormone"
|
1956
| Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood Nikolay Nikolaevich Semenov (Никола́й Никола́евич Семёнов)
| United Kingdom Soviet Union
| "for their research into the mechanism of chemical reactions"
|
1957
| Sir Alexander Todd
| United Kingdom
| "for his work on nucleotides and nucleotide co-enzymes"
|
1958
| Frederick Sanger
| United Kingdom
| "for his work on the structure of proteins, especially insulin"
|
1959
| Jaroslav Heyrovský
| Czechoslovakia
| "for his discovery and development of the polarographic methods of analysis"
|
1960
| Willard Frank Libby
| United States
| "for his method to use carbon-14 for age determination"
|
1961
| Melvin Calvin
| United States
| "for his research on carbon dioxide assimilation in plants"
|
1962
| Max Ferdinand Perutz John Cowdery Kendrew
| United Kingdom United Kingdom
| "for their studies of the structures of globular proteins"
|
1963
| Karl Ziegler Giulio Natta
| West Germany Italy
| "for their discoveries relating to high polymers"
|
1964
| Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
| United Kingdom
| "for her determinations by X-ray techniques of the structures of important biochemical substances"
|
1965
| Robert Burns Woodward
| United States
| "for his achievements in organic synthesis"
|
1966
| Robert Sanderson Mulliken
| United States
| "for his work concerning chemical bonds and the electronic structure of molecules"
|
1967
| Manfred Eigen
| West Germany
| "for their studies of extremely fast chemical reactions, effected by disturbing the equilibrium by means of very short pulses of energy"
|
Ronald George Wreyford Norrish George Porter
| United Kingdom United Kingdom
|
1968
| Lars Onsager
| Norway United States
| "for the discovery of the reciprocal relations bearing his name"
|
1969
| Derek Harold Richard Barton Odd Hassel
| United Kingdom Norway
| "for their contributions to the development of the concept of conformation"
|
1970
| Luis F. Leloir
| Argentina
| "for his discovery of sugar nucleotides and their role in the biosynthesis of carbohydrates"
|
1971
| Gerhard Herzberg
| Canada
| "for his contributions to electronic structure and the geometry of molecules, particularly free radicals"
|
1972
| Christian B. Anfinsen
| United States
| "for his work on ribonuclease, especially concerning the connection between the amino acid sequence and the biologically active conformation"
|
Stanford Moore William H. Stein
| United States United States
| "for their contribution to the understanding of the connection between chemical structure and catalytic activity of the active centre of the ribonuclease molecule"
|
1973
| Ernst Otto Fischer Geoffrey Wilkinson
| West Germany United Kingdom
| "for their pioneering work, performed independently, on the chemistry of the organometallic, so called sandwich compounds"
|
1974
| Paul J. Flory
| United States
| "for his fundamental work, both theoretical and experimental, in the physical chemistry of macromolecules"
|
1975
| John Warcup Cornforth
| Australia United Kingdom
| "for his work on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalyzed reactions"
|
Vladimir Prelog
| Switzerland
| "for his research into the stereochemistry of organic molecules and reactions"
|
1976
| William Nunn Lipscomb, Jr.
| United States
| "for his studies on the structure of boranes illuminating problems of chemical bonding"
|
1977
| Ilya Prigogine
| Belgium
| "for his contributions to non-equilibrium thermodynamics, particularly the theory of dissipative structures"
|
1978
| Peter D. Mitchell
| United Kingdom
| "for his contribution to the understanding of biological energy transfer through the formulation of the chemiosmotic theory"
|
1979
| Herbert C. Brown Georg Wittig
| United States West Germany
| "for their development of the use of boron- and phosphorus-containing compounds, respectively, into reagents in organic synthesis"
|
1980
| Paul Berg
| United States
| "for his fundamental studies of the biochemistry of nucleic acids, with particular regard to recombinant-DNA"
|
Walter Gilbert Frederick Sanger
| United States United Kingdom
| "for their contributions concerning the determination of base sequences in nucleic acids"
|
1981
| Kenichi Fukui (福井謙一) Roald Hoffmann
| Japan United States
| "for their theories concerning the course of chemical reactions"
|
1982
| Aaron Klug
| South Africa United Kingdom
| "for his development of crystallographic electron microscopy and his structural elucidation of biologically important nucleic acid-protein complexes"
|
1983
| Henry Taube
| United States
| "for his work on the mechanisms of electron transfer reactions"
|
1984
| Robert Bruce Merrifield
| United States
| "for his development of methodology for chemical synthesis on a solid matrix"
|
1985
| Herbert A. Hauptman Jerome Karle
| United States United States
| "for their achievements in developing direct methods for the determination of crystal structures"
|
1986
| Dudley R. Herschbach Yuan T. Lee (李遠哲) John C. Polanyi
| United States; Taiwan United States; Canada
| "for their contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elementary processes"
|
1987
| Donald J. Cram Jean-Marie Lehn Charles J. Pedersen
| United States France United States
| "for their development and use of molecules with structure-specific interactions of high selectivity"
|
1988
| Johann Deisenhofer Robert Huber Hartmut Michel
| West Germany West Germany West Germany
| "for their determination of the three-dimensional structure of a photosynthetic reaction centre"
|
1989
| Sidney Altman Thomas R. Cech
| Canada United States; United States
| "for their discovery of catalytic properties of RNA"
|
1990
| Elias James Corey
| United States
| "for his development of the theory and methodology of organic synthesis"
|
1991
| Richard R. Ernst
| Switzerland
| "for his contributions to the development of high resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy"
|
1992
| Rudolph A. Marcus
| United States
| "for his contributions to the theory of electron transfer reactions in chemical systems"
|
1993
| Kary B. Mullis
| United States
| "for his invention of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method"
|
Michael Smith
| Canada
| "for his fundamental contributions to the establishment of oligonucleotide-based, site-directed mutagenesis and its development for protein studies"
|
1994
| George A. Olah
| United States
| "for his contribution to carbocation chemistry"
|
1995
| Paul J. Crutzen Mario J. Molina F. Sherwood Rowland
| Netherlands Mexico United States
| "for their work in atmospheric chemistry, in particular ozone depletion"
|
1996
| Robert Curl Sir Harold Kroto Richard Smalley
| United States United Kingdom United States
| "for their discovery of fullerenes"
|
1997
| Paul D. Boyer John E. Walker
| United States United Kingdom
| "for their elucidation of the enzymatic mechanism underlying the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate"
|
Jens C. Skou
| Denmark
| "for his discovery of an ion-transporting enzyme, Na+/K+-ATPase"
|
1998
| Walter Kohn
| United States
| "for his development of the density functional theory"
|
John A. Pople
| United Kingdom
| "for his development of computational methods in quantum chemistry"
|
1999
| Ahmed H. Zewail (أحمد زويل)
| Egypt United States
| "for his studies of the transition states of chemical reactions using femtosecond spectroscopy"
|
2000
| Alan J. Heeger Alan G MacDiarmid Hideki Shirakawa (白川英樹)
| United States; New Zealand United States; Japan
| "for their discovery and development of conductive polymers"
|
2001
| William S. Knowles Ryoji Noyori (野依良治)
| United States Japan
| "for their work on chirally catalysed hydrogenation reactions"
|
K. Barry Sharpless
| United States
| "for his work on chirally catalysed oxidation reactions" see Sharpless asymmetric dihydroxylation
|
2002
| John B. Fenn Koichi Tanaka (田中耕一)
| United States Japan
| "for their development of soft desorption ionisation methods for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules"
|
Kurt Wüthrich
| Switzerland
| "for his development of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy for determining the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules in solution"
|
2003
| Peter Agre
| United States
| "for the discovery of water channels"
|
Roderick MacKinnon
| United States
| "for structural and mechanistic studies of ion channels"
|
2004
| Aaron Ciechanover Avram Hershko Irwin Rose
| Israel Israel United States
| "for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation"
|
2005
| Robert Grubbs Richard Schrock Yves Chauvin
| United States United States France
| "for the development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis"
|
2006
| Roger D. Kornberg
| United States
| "for his studies of the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription"
|
2007
| Gerhard Ertl
| Germany
| "for his studies of chemical processes on solid surfaces"
|