Otto Paul Hermann Diels:
Otto Paul Hermann Diels was a German chemist and Nobel laureate.
Birth:
January 23, 1876 in Hamburg, Germany
Death:
March 7, 1954 in Kiel, West Germany
Claim to Fame:
Diels was a German chemist who shares the 1950 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Kurt Alder for their development of diene synthesis, otherwise known as the Diels-Alder reaction. A diene is a hydrocarbon with two double bonds. The Diels-Alder reaction converts dienes and alkenes into ring molecules. It is important in the synthesis of many polymers, steroids and alkaloids.
