OLIVER BRIEL
Member of chimica oggi/Chemistry Today’s Scientific advisory board

The “2011: International Year of Chemistry” allows me and my colleagues from the scientific advisory board of Chimica Oggi/Chemistry Today to reflect on the influence of advances in chemistry research during the past 109 years by looking at who was awarded with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and which socio-economic impact did the research contributions of the Laureates have.
As a representative of a precious metals company I will logically take a look at it in the perspective of precious metals chemistry. Just recently in the May 2011 issue my colleague Ian C. Lennon did a formidable job highlighting the impact of Nobel Prize in Chemistry on fine chemicals (1). Amongst others he mentioned three recent important Nobel Prizes which for sure are still in everybody’s mind: 2010 Nobel Prize was jointly awarded to Richard F. Heck, Eichi Negichi and Akira Suzuki for t
heir contributions to developing the technology of Palladium catalysed coupling reactions. 2005 prize was awarded to Yves Chauvin, Robert H. Grubbs and Richard R. Schrock for their contributions in the field of olefin metathesis and in 2001 it was awarded to William S. Knowles, Ryoji Noyori an ...