Paul Sabatier Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1912, jointly with Victor Grignard Date of Birth: 05.11.1854 Country: France

1. Childhood and Education
2. Early Research and Discoveries
3. The Sabatier Process
4. Hydrogenation and Nobel Prize
5. Contributions to Catalysis
6. Personal Life and Legacy

Childhood and Education

Paul Sabatier was born on November 5, 1854, in Carcassonne, France, to Pauline (Guilhem) Sabatier and Alexis Sabatier, a landowner who later became a hatmaker after losing his estate due to unpaid debts. Sabatier was the youngest of seven children and a curious and clever boy. He attended the lycée in Carcassonne, where he excelled academically. Despite his intelligence, he once remarked, "I work most on the subject that I like the least." In 1868, he moved to the lycée in Toulouse to prepare for university entrance exams. In Toulouse, he also attended public lectures on physics and chemistry, which sparked his passion for scientific inquiry.

Before going to Paris for two years of preparatory studies, Sabatier studied classical languages and literature at the Collège Saint-Marie in Toulouse from 1869 to 1872. In 1874, he ranked first on the entrance exams for both the École Normale Supérieure and the École Polytechnique. He chose the latter and graduated top of his class three years later. He then taught physics at the lycée in Nîmes for a year before becoming an assistant to the chemist Marcellin Berthelot at the Collège de France. There, he continued his studies and earned his doctorate in 1880 with a thesis on the thermochemistry of sulfur and metal sulfates.

Early Research and Discoveries

Sabatier initially focused on inorganic chemistry, following Berthelot's lead. Using the vacuum distillation method, he obtained pure hydrogen disulfide. He also isolated binary compounds of boron and silicon, discovered several new metal nitrides, and developed methods for preparing nitrosyldisulfonic acid and a basic mixed copper-silver salt. In the 1890s, Sabatier shifted his attention to organic chemistry. He became particularly interested in catalytic processes involving hydrogenation, where unsaturated organic compounds are converted into saturated ones. At the time, platinum and palladium were typically used as catalysts, but their high cost hindered widespread industrial applications.

The Sabatier Process

Aware of experiments that produced nickel carbonyl by exposing powdered nickel to carbon monoxide, Sabatier hypothesized that other gases could react with nickel and other metals. In 1896, he obtained nitrogen peroxide in the presence of copper, cobalt, and nickel. When he learned that Henri Moissan and Charles Moureu, another French chemist, had failed to achieve the same results using acetylene, Sabatier repeated their experiment with the less reactive ethylene. He observed that at 300°C, the ethylene gas reacted vigorously with nickel, depositing carbon and releasing a gas. Moissan and Moureu had predicted that the gas would be hydrogen. However, Sabatier discovered that it was primarily ethane, a saturated hydrocarbon.

Hydrogenation and Nobel Prize

Sabatier realized that finely divided nickel could be used as a catalyst for hydrogenating carbon compounds instead of binding ethylene. Saturated hydrocarbons were valuable intermediates for producing medicines, fragrances, detergents, edible fats, and other industrial products. Sabatier's discovery had immense practical significance, but he only patented a few of his findings and continued to pursue basic research. Working with his student J.B. Senderens, he demonstrated that nickel could also hydrogenate other hydrocarbons.

In 1912, Sabatier was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his method of hydrogenating organic compounds in the presence of finely divided metals, whereby the progress of organic chemistry has been greatly advanced." He shared the prize with the French chemist Victor Grignard. In his Nobel lecture, Sabatier stated, "For the last fifteen years, the thought of the mechanism of catalysis has never left me. All my lucky hits are the consequences of the conclusions that it has suggested to me." He added, "Theories have no claim to immortality; they are the ploughs which the labourer uses to make his furrows, and which he has the right to replace by more perfect ones when the harvest has been gathered."

Contributions to Catalysis

A year after receiving the Nobel Prize, Sabatier published his findings in a comprehensive monograph, "Catalysis in Organic Chemistry," which was translated into several languages, including Russian. Sabatier's concept contradicted the theory of catalysis proposed earlier by Wilhelm Ostwald, who believed that gaseous reactants were absorbed into the micropores of solid catalysts. Sabatier proposed instead that these reactions occur on the external surface of catalysts, resulting in the formation of temporary, unstable intermediates. The unstable compounds then decompose, releasing the observed reaction product. This general concept remains valid even in evaluating the conduct of recently discovered catalysts.

Personal Life and Legacy

In 1884, Sabatier married Germaine Héral, the daughter of a local judge. They had four daughters. After his wife's death in 1898, Sabatier never remarried. He continued to lecture at the University of Toulouse until 1939, when his health began to decline. He passed away on August 14, 1941, in Toulouse. Sabatier was known for his calm and reserved nature.

In addition to the Nobel Prize, Sabatier received numerous other awards, including the Jecker Prize of the French Academy of Sciences (1905), the Davy Medal (1915), the Royal Medal (1918) of the Royal Society of London, and the Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute (1933). He received honorary degrees from the Universities of Pennsylvania and Zaragoza and was a member of the French Academy of Sciences and a foreign member of many scientific societies, including the Royal Society of London, the Madrid Academy of Sciences, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Chemical Society, the Brussels Scientific Society, and the Chemical Society of Great Britain.

Paul Sabatier's groundbreaking work on hydrogenation revolutionized organic chemistry and laid the foundation for countless industrial processes. His legacy as a dedicated scientist and a pioneering researcher continues to inspire generations of chemists.