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Nikolay Nikolaevich Semenov
1896–1986 · Russia · Born in the 1800s
Nobel Chemistry 1956
Soviet physical chemist who created the theory of branched chain reactions, explaining explosions, combustion and oxidation kinetics.
Nobel Prize work
Semenov founded the theory of chain reactions, showing that reactive intermediates can branch a reaction so that one event triggers many more. His concepts of chain branching and termination explained explosions, combustion and oxidation processes, transforming the understanding of chemical reaction mechanisms — a prize shared with Cyril Hinshelwood.
Fields
Related topics
Reaction rate, reaction order
Measuring how fast concentrations change, and how the empirical order of a reaction is read from its concentration–time behaviour.
Complex reaction mechanisms, catalysis
Building rate laws from elementary steps, steady-state and rate-determining-step approximations, chain reactions, and how catalysts open alternative pathways.