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Svante Arrhenius
1859–1927 · Physical chemistry, electrolytes and early climate science
Svante Arrhenius explained electrically conducting solutions and made pioneering calculations about carbon dioxide and Earth’s temperature.
Why is this scientist famous?
Svante Arrhenius explained how dissolved substances produce ions, developed chemical kinetics concepts and calculated how atmospheric carbon dioxide might affect climate.
Arrhenius’s ion theory and work on reaction rates remain central to chemistry; his climate calculations helped launch quantitative study of the greenhouse effect.
Svante's story
Why can salt water conduct electricity?
Svante August Arrhenius was born in Sweden on 19 February 1859. As a young physicist he explored a chemical puzzle: pure water conducts electricity poorly, yet solutions containing salts and some other substances can carry an electric current. During the 1880s he proposed that dissolving these substances produces charged particles called ions. His ideas were controversial at first because chemists did not yet fully agree how dissolved substances behaved.
The theory of dissolved ions
Arrhenius’s electrolytic dissociation theory explained why ions in solution can carry electrical charge and why solutions of different substances have distinctive properties. Later chemical knowledge refined aspects of the original theory, but the central picture of positive and negative ions remains essential. His work became an important foundation of physical chemistry, the field connecting measurable physical behaviour to chemical change. In 1903 Arrhenius received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his electrolytic dissociation theory.
Heat and the speed of reactions
Arrhenius also studied how reaction rates depend on temperature. The equation named after him relates a reaction’s rate constant to temperature and a quantity called activation energy. Heating generally allows more molecular encounters to overcome the energy barrier needed for a reaction to proceed. This framework remains useful in subjects ranging from chemistry and food storage to environmental processes, although real reactions can involve additional complications.
An early calculation of climate change
In 1896 Arrhenius used painstaking calculations to estimate how changing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could affect Earth’s temperature. Other scientists had already investigated the heat-trapping properties of gases and the possible role of carbon dioxide, so he was building on an existing field rather than discovering the greenhouse effect by himself. His calculations were approximate and his assumptions are not those of modern climate models, but they marked an influential early quantitative attempt to connect atmospheric composition and global temperature.
A wide scientific legacy
Arrhenius became director of the Nobel Institute for Physical Chemistry in Stockholm in 1905 and remained an influential figure in Swedish science. He worked across chemistry, physics and questions about the Earth. Modern scientists use far more advanced measurements and climate models, but they still recognise the value of framing questions mathematically and testing how a change in one variable affects a system. Arrhenius died in Stockholm on 2 October 1927.
What did they discover?
Electrolytic dissociation
Explained conduction in many solutions using free positively and negatively charged ions.
Arrhenius equation
Helped establish the mathematical relationship between temperature and rates of chemical reactions.
Quantitative greenhouse calculations
Calculated in 1896 how atmospheric carbon dioxide changes might affect Earth’s surface temperature.
Physical chemistry
Helped build the discipline connecting chemical reactions with physical laws and measurement.
Amazing facts
He was born in Sweden in 1859.
His early proposal concerned freely moving ions in chemical solutions.
His 1880s ideas were initially met with scepticism.
He received the 1903 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for electrolytic dissociation.
The Arrhenius equation describes a relationship between reaction rates and temperature.
He calculated effects of atmospheric carbon dioxide changes in 1896.
His climate work built on earlier greenhouse science rather than inventing it.
He became director of the Nobel Institute for Physical Chemistry in 1905.
Timeline
Born in Sweden.
Developed his early dissertation work on electrolytic dissociation.
Published influential work on the temperature dependence of reaction rates.
Published quantitative estimates of the climatic effects of changing atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Became director of the Nobel Institute for Physical Chemistry.
Died in Stockholm.
Awards & honours
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