Kenichi Fukui

Kenichi Fukui, Nobel Laureate

Born: 1918-10-04 in Nara, Japan

Gender: male

Field: Japanese chemist (1918–1998)

Biography

Kenichi Fukui was a Japanese chemist. He became the first person of East Asian ancestry to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry when he won the 1981 prize with Roald Hoffmann, for their independent investigations into the mechanisms of chemical reactions. Fukui's prize-winning work focused on the role of frontier orbitals in chemical reactions: specifically that molecules share loosely bonded electrons which occupy the frontier orbitals, that is, the Highest Occupied Molecular Orbital (HOMO) and the Lowest Unoccupied Molecular Orbital (LUMO).

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Nobel Prize Details

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1981

Awarded on: 1981-10-19

"for their theories, developed independently, concerning the course of chemical reactions"

Affiliations:

  • Kyoto UniversityKyoto, Japan