Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald almost single-handedly established physical chemistry as an acknowledged academic discipline. In 1909, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on catalysis, chemical equilibria, and reaction velocities.
Ostwald, born on 2nd September 1853, was a German chemist. Ostwald, Jacobus Henricus van’t Hoff, and Svante Arrhenius are credited with being the modern founders of the field of physical chemistry.
Ostwald went to Leipzig in 1887, where he carried out ground-breaking research on catalysis, while promoting the works of Arrhenius and van’t Hoff.
In 1894, he revealed how a catalyst can affect a chemical reaction’s speed, but is not included in its end-products. This understanding shed great light on chemical reactions, occurring in both industrial processes and living organisms. Ostwald died in 1932, after a short illness. He was 79 years old.