Portal:Chemistry/Selected biography/2

Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927) was a Swedish chemist, and one of the founders of the science of physical chemistry. The Arrhenius equation and the lunar crater Arrhenius are named after him. Arrhenius was the first to explain the fact that neither pure salts nor pure water are conductors, but solutions of salts in water are, due to the dissociation of salt into ions. As an extension of this idea, he proposed that acids were substances which produce hydrogen ions in solution, and that bases were substances which produce hydroxide ions in solution. Arrhenius also developed a theory to explain the ice ages, and first formulated the idea that changes in the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could substantially alter the surface temperature through the greenhouse effect. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1903.