- German inorganic
chemist who showed that transition metals can bond chemically to carbon.
He and English chemist Geoffrey Wilkinson shared the 1973 Nobel Prize
for Chemistry for their work on organometallic compounds, which they
carried out independently.
Fischer was born in Munich and educated at the Munich Technical University.
He remained there, becoming professor 1959.
Investigating a synthetic compound called ferrocene, both Fischer and
Wilkinson separately came to the conclusion that each molecule of ferrocene
consists of a single iron atom sandwiched between two five-sided carbon
rings - an organometallic compound. A combination of chemical and physical
studies, finally confirmed by X-ray analysis, showed the compound's
structure.
With this work came the general realization that transition metals can
bond chemically to carbon, and other ring systems were then studied.
All the elements of the first transition series have now been incorporated
into molecules of this kind and all except that of manganese have the
ferrocene-type structure. Only ferrocene, however, is stable in air,
the others being sensitive to oxidation.
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