Jaroslav Heyrovsky
Facts
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.
Jaroslav Heyrovsky
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1959
Born: 20 December 1890, Prague, Austria-Hungary (now Czech Republic)
Died: 27 March 1967, Prague, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic)
Affiliation at the time of the award: Polarographic Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Science, Prague, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic)
Prize motivation: “for his discovery and development of the polarographic methods of analysis”
Prize share: 1/1
Work
Chemical and electrical phenomena are often associated, as in the case of redox reactions, when electrons are emitted and absorbed. In 1922 Jaroslav Heyrovsky discovered a method for analyzing the occurrence and content of various substances in solutions using electrical measurements. The solution is analyzed with two electrodes, one of which is a dropping mercury electrode. At a voltage specific for different substances, redox reactions cause the current to rapidly increase to a level dependent on the concentration of the substance.
Nobel Prizes and laureates
Six prizes were awarded for achievements that have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. The 12 laureates' work and discoveries range from proteins' structures and machine learning to fighting for a world free of nuclear weapons.
See them all presented here.
