Svante Arrhenius

Svante Arrhenius (1859–1927) was a Swedish physical chemist who developed the theory of electrolytic dissociation and made influential contributions to chemical kinetics and climate science.

Wilhelm Ostwald: A German chemist who helped establish physical chemistry and championed the theory of electrolytic dissociation. Ostwald supported Arrhenius’s dissociation theory and helped secure its acceptance.
Electrolyte: A substance that produces mobile ions when dissolved in a solvent or melted, enabling electrical conduction. Arrhenius’s dissociation theory explains how electrolytes conduct electricity in solution.
Arrhenius equation: An equation describing how a chemical reaction’s rate constant depends on temperature and activation energy. Arrhenius formulated this relation to quantify temperature’s effect on reaction rates.
Physical chemistry: The branch of chemistry that explains chemical systems using physical principles, measurements, and mathematical models. Arrhenius’s ion theory and rate equation became foundations of the emerging discipline.
Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory: An acid–base theory defining acids as proton donors and bases as proton acceptors. It applies beyond aqueous hydrogen- and hydroxide-ion definitions associated with Arrhenius.
Jacob us van 't Hoff: A Dutch physical chemist whose work on chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure helped found physical chemistry. His work provided theoretical context for Arrhenius’s account of solutions and reaction rates.
Ion: An atom or molecule with a net electric charge because it has gained or lost electrons. His theory treated dissolved electrolytes as sources of charged particles.
Arrhenius plot: A graph of the logarithm of a reaction rate constant against inverse absolute temperature. Its slope can reveal activation energy using the Arrhenius equation.
Electrolytic dissociation: The separation of dissolved electrolytes into charged ions, as described in Arrhenius’s theory. This theory transformed the interpretation of conductivity and chemical reactions in solution.
Lewis acid–base theory: An acid–base theory defining acids as electron-pair acceptors and bases as electron-pair donors. Its electron-pair framework covers reactions outside Arrhenius’s aqueous ion model.

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