Physical Chemistry (van 't Hoff)
Van 't Hoff, Arrhenius and Ostwald (1884-87) apply the laws of heat to chemistry: how far a reaction goes, how fast, and what salts do in water become calculable.
Open in the interactive tree →Van 't Hoff's 'Études de dynamique chimique' (1884) treated chemical equilibria and reaction rates with thermodynamics. Arrhenius explained that salts split into ions in water (1884-87) and gave the temperature law for reaction rates named after him (1889). In 1887 Ostwald and van 't Hoff founded the Zeitschrift für physikalische Chemie in Leipzig, the first journal of the field, and the three won Chemistry Nobel Prizes between 1901 (van 't Hoff, the very first) and 1909 (Ostwald). Haber's 1905 book on the thermodynamics of industrial gas reactions used the same method, and his ammonia process followed.
Prerequisites
- Electrolysis (Davy, Faraday)1807Arrhenius's ions came from studying how salt solutions conduct current
- Atomic Theory (Dalton)1808Equilibria and osmotic pressure are counted in atoms and molecules.
- Thermodynamics1824Equilibrium and reaction rates are treated with the laws of heat and energy
Unlocks
- Haber-Bosch Process (Air to Ammonia)1909Haber used equilibrium thermodynamics to find the conditions for ammonia synthesis