Alfred Werner

Swiss chemist Nobel laureate (1866-1919)

Source-basedStable

Lived 1866–1919, aged 53Switzerland

Switzerland ScientistsScientist

Fame5.0
Momentum4.1
Switzerland rank#41
Scientists rank#35
Wikipedia1.3K

Wikipedia
71 languages
Cross-language footprint
Rank in Switzerland
#41
Scientists
Era
1866–1919
Aged 53

Summary

Updated 2026-05-29

Swiss chemist who cracked the structure of metal complexes in 1913 and became the first inorganic chemist to snag a Nobel Prize. Built the foundation for coordination chemistry while based at University of Zurich.

Biography

About

Alfred Werner was a Swiss chemist who was a student at ETH Zurich and a professor at the University of Zurich. He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1913 for proposing the octahedral configuration of transition metal complexes. Werner developed the basis for modern coordination chemistry. He was the first inorganic chemist to win the Nobel Prize, and the only one prior to 1973.

Profile