Geoffrey Wilkinson
Wilkinson, Geoffrey (1921-1996), a British chemist, is known for his work on organometallic compounds. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in chemistry, for establishing the structure of “sandwich molecules” and discovering a new class of compounds, with German chemist Ernst Otto Fischer, who independently worked in the same area.
Wilkinson attended the Imperial College of Science and Technology (now the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) at the University of London, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1941 and a doctor's degree in 1946. During World War II (1939–1945), he was sent to Montreal, Canada, to work on an atomic energy project. In 1946, after the war ended, Wilkinson joined the research group at the University of California Radiation Laboratory (now the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) at Berkeley.
In 1950, Wilkinson left California for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in 1951, he became assistant professor at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. While working at Harvard in the early 1950's, he investigated the structure of a newly synthesized compound, ferrocene. He showed that the ferrocene molecule consists of an iron atom bonded to each of five carbon atoms in two rings of carbon and hydrogen. The iron atom is “sandwiched” between the two rings. Wilkinson and others have since synthesized additional organometallic compounds with similar structures. Many have proven valuable in several areas, including pharmaceutical and industrial applications.
Using newly developed techniques, such as nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, Wilkinson went on to analyze the structure of other compounds. He also co-wrote a leading inorganic chemistry textbook.
In January 1956, Wilkinson returned to England as professor of inorganic chemistry at Imperial College. He retired as professor emeritus in 1988.