2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Yves Chauvin, Robert H. Grubbs and Richard R. Schrock. The prize was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on 5 October 2005.

The citation

The citation reads: "for the development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis". They share the prize equally.

The laureates

Yves Chauvin was born in 1930 in Menin, Belgium, and is affiliated with Institut Français du Pétrole, Rueil-Malmaison. Robert H. Grubbs was born in 1942 in Possum Trot, the United States, and is affiliated with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena. Richard R. Schrock was born in 1945 in Berne, the United States, and is affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge.

Why it matters

Metathesis is a reaction in which chemical groups swap places. It has made the production of medicines and plastics more efficient and less wasteful.

The prize

The prize is worth 10 million Swedish kronor, divided between the laureates. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895.