Alfred Werner’s Coordination Theory

lefttop Alfred Werner was the first Swiss citizen and also the first inorganic chemist who win the noble prize in 1913 for his coordination theory of transition metal-amine complexes. He was awarded the Noble Prize with the prize motivation state as “in recognition f his work on the linkage of atom in molecules, by which he has thrown fresh light on old problem and opened new field of research, particularly in inorganic chemistry”. Werner was born on 12 December 1866 in the French region of Alsace, which came under German control through the Franco-Prussian war while he was a child. His father, Jean-Adam Werner who was a factory foreman and his mother was Salomé Jeanette Tesché. n 1894, Werner married Emma Giesker, a member of a German family. They had one son, Alfred, and one daughter, Charlotte. At an early age he showed an interesting in chemistry and when he was 18, he did his first independent chemical research. He was raised as Roman Catholic. He went to Switzerland to study chemistry at the Swiss Federal Institute in Zurich where he earned his PHD degree in 1890. His thesis dealt with the spatial arrangement of atoms in nitrogen compounds. He then continued his study for a year in Paris before returning to Swiss Federal Institute (1892) to teach organic chemistry. Then the following year he became associate professor at the University of Zurich and director of its chemical laboratory. In 1895, he became professor of chemistry at the same University in Zurich. He taught organic chemistry and in 1902 inorganic chemistry as well. The same year he became a Swiss citizen Coordination chemistry is the study of compounds formed between metal ions and other neutral or negatively charged molecules. When the complex is charged, it is stabilized by neighboring counter-ions. A coordination compound also called metal complex, which is a charged species consisting of metal ion bonded to one or more groups of molecules. The bonded molecules are called

References: Kleinberg, J.; Argersinger, W J; Griswold E. Inorganic Chemistry.; D. C. Heath and Company: Boston, MA, 1960; Chapter 6. “Alfred Werner-Biography”. Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2013. Accessed on 12 Feb 2014. Alfred Werner. http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/639857/Alfred-Werner. Accessed on 12 Feb 2014. Alfred Werner. http://www.nndb.com/people/232/000099932/. Accessed on 12 Feb 2014 Angel C. de Dios, “Lecture XXXI Chem 002”. Accessed on 12 Feb 2014 Werner’s Theory of coordination compound and Definition of important terms in Coordination Compound. http://cbse12chem.syncacademy.com/2012/04/chemistry-ch-9-1werner-theory-of.html. Accessed on 12 Feb 2014. Coordination Chemistry. http://www.science.uwaterloo.ca/~cchieh/cact/applychem/coordcpd.html. Accessed on 12 Feb 2014.