born Sept. 2, 1853, Riga, Latvia
died April 4, 1932, near Leipzig, Ger.
Russian-German physical chemist.
He moved to Germany in 1887. He wrote the influential Textbook of General Chemistry , 2 vol. (188587). With Jacobus H. van't Hoff in 1887 he founded the Zeitschrift für physikalische Chemie , which became for many years the most important journal in the field. His work at the University of Leipzig (18871906) established it as a great school of physical chemistry . In 1888 he discovered Ostwald's law of dilution of an electrolyte. He gave the first modern definition of a catalyst in 1894 and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1909 for his work on catalysis . His process for the conversion of ammonia to nitric acid proved of great industrial importance. He is regarded as one of the founders of the field of physical chemistry.