The reason why the 1950 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Diels was that he carried out the addition reaction that allowed the synthesis of many organic compounds. Thanks to it, the industrial production of many chemicals took place.
(1876-1954) German (FAC), organic chemist. He shared the 1950 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Alder by realizing the addition reaction that allowed the synthesis of many organic compounds.
Otto Paul Hermann Diels was born in Hamburg on January 23, 1876. He died in Kiel on March 7, 1954. He is the son of the famous classical linguist Hermann Diels (1848-1922). He started studying chemistry at the University of Berlin in 1895, received his doctorate in 1899, became Emil Fischer's assistant at the same university, and then a lecturer in 1904.
Otto Paul Hermann Diels (23 January 1876 – 7 March 1954) was a German chemist. His most notable work was done with Kurt Alder on the Diels–Alder reaction, a method for diene synthesis. The pair was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1950 for their work. Their method of synthesizing cyclic organic compounds proved valuable for the manufacture of synthetic rubber and plastic. He completed his education at the University of Berlin, where he later worked. Diels was employed at the University of Kiel when he completed his Nobel Prize–winning work, and remained there until he retired in 1945. Diels was married, with five children. He died in 1954.
In 1916, he accepted the call from Kiel University to become a professor of chemistry and head of the Institute of Chemistry, a position he held until his retirement in 1948. Diels, who carried out the diene synthesis at this institute with his student and assistant Kurt Alder, worked to reorganize the institute, a large part of which was destroyed in aerial bombardment, despite losing his two sons in World War II and his advanced age, and two years after his retirement, he received the 1950 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He shared it with Alder.
Diels' biggest contribution to organic chemistry is his synthesis of dienes, known as the "Diels-Alder reaction", which yields six-carbon cyclic compounds. While working on diene reactions with his assistant Kurt Alder in 1928, they observed a hitherto unknown addition reaction between an unsaturated hydrocarbon from the olefin group and a diene. For example, when ethylene reacts with butadiene, it gives cyclohexene, which is a six-carbon, one-ring compound containing a carbon-carbon double bond.
The most important feature of the reaction was that it took place under normal environmental conditions, without requiring a catalyst, high temperature, or pressure. This reaction, which developed under very similar conditions and at the same speed as the reactions in living organisms, gave Diels the belief that many compounds of natural and biological importance were synthesized by the same reaction mechanism in the cell. Indeed, within a few years, many organic compounds were synthesized using the same method.
Gates succeeded in producing morphine in a single step, and Woodward and Sarett succeeded in producing cortisone by synthesis. One of these reaction products had the properties of vitamin K. All these findings strengthened the view that many hormones and vitamins are formed through the same synthesis in the cell. This reaction, which allowed the production of many organic compounds that play a fundamental role in the vital activity of living things, as well as substances of economic value, such as synthetic rubber and rubber, by polymerizing isoprene or butadiene and styrene, initiated a new era in organic synthesis chemistry.