Adolf von Baeyer

Adolf von Baeyer was a German chemist best known for working out the chemical structure of indigo, the blue dye long extracted from plants, and for developing a practical method to synthesize it artificially, research carried out over more than a decade and completed in the 1880s that helped found the modern synthetic dye industry and undercut the previous large-scale agricultural production of natural indigo. Baeyer also did extensive foundational work on organic ring compounds, including early research into phthalein dyes and into strained carbon ring structures that led to what became known as Baeyer strain theory, an early explanation for why small and large carbon rings tend to be less chemically stable than rings of a middle size. He led an influential chemistry laboratory at the University of Munich for decades, training a very large number of doctoral students who went on to prominent careers across organic chemistry. Baeyer received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1905 in recognition of his services in the advancement of organic chemistry and the chemical industry, through his work on organic dyes and hydroaromatic compounds.