Organic chemistry Van 't Hoff earned his earliest reputation in the field of
organic chemistry. In 1874, he accounted for the phenomenon of
optical activity by assuming that the
chemical bonds between
carbon atoms and their neighbors were directed towards the corners of a regular
tetrahedron. This three-dimensional structure accounted for the
isomers found in nature. He shares credit for this with the French chemist
Joseph Le Bel, who independently came up with the same idea. Three months before his doctoral degree was awarded, Van 't Hoff published this theory, which today is regarded as the foundation of
stereochemistry, first in a Dutch pamphlet in the fall of 1874, and then in the following May in a small French book entitled ''La chimie dans l'espace''. A German translation appeared in 1877, at a time when the only job Van 't Hoff could find was at the Veterinary School in Utrecht. In these early years his theory was largely ignored by the scientific community, and was sharply criticized by one prominent chemist,
Hermann Kolbe. Kolbe wrote: "A Dr. J. H. van 't Hoff of the Veterinary School at Utrecht has no liking, apparently, for exact chemical investigation. He has considered it more convenient to mount Pegasus (apparently borrowed from the Veterinary School) and to proclaim in his
‘La chimie dans l’espace’ how, in his bold flight to the top of the chemical Parnassus, the atoms appeared to him to be arranged in cosmic space." However, by about 1880, support for Van 't Hoff's theory by such important chemists as
Johannes Wislicenus and
Viktor Meyer brought recognition.
Physical chemistry In 1884, Van 't Hoff published his research on chemical kinetics, titled
Études de Dynamique chimique (
"Studies in Chemical Dynamics"), in which he described a new method for determining the
order of a reaction using
graphics and applied the laws of
thermodynamics to chemical equilibria. He also introduced the modern concept of
chemical affinity. In 1886, he showed a similarity between the behaviour of dilute solutions and gases. In 1887, he and German chemist
Wilhelm Ostwald founded an influential scientific magazine named
Zeitschrift für physikalische Chemie ("
Journal of Physical Chemistry"). He worked on
Svante Arrhenius's theory of the dissociation of
electrolytes and in 1889 provided physical justification for the
Arrhenius equation. In 1896, he became a professor at the
Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. His studies of the salt deposits at
Stassfurt were an important contribution to Prussia's chemical industry. (right) Van 't Hoff became a lecturer in chemistry and physics at the
Veterinary College in
Utrecht. He then worked as a professor of chemistry,
mineralogy, and
geology at the
University of Amsterdam for almost 18 years before eventually becoming the chairman of the chemistry department. In 1896, van 't Hoff moved to Germany, where he finished his career at the
University of Berlin in 1911. In 1901, he received the first
Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work with solutions. His work showed that very dilute solutions follow mathematical laws that closely resemble the laws describing the behavior of
gases. ==Honours and awards==