Who proposed Henri Moissan over Mendeleev for the 1906 Nobel Prize in Chemistry?

Peter Klason proposed Henri Moissan over Dmitri Mendeleev for the 1906 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Mendeleev had been nominated repeatedly for creating the periodic system, and the Nobel Committee for Chemistry recommended him for the 1906 prize. The chemistry section of the Swedish Academy also supported that recommendation, making the final decision appear likely to favor Mendeleev.

At the Academy’s full meeting, however, Klason—a dissenting member of the Nobel Committee—put forward Moissan instead. Svante Arrhenius, who was not a member of the chemistry committee but wielded considerable influence, also opposed Mendeleev. Historical accounts connect Arrhenius’s opposition partly to Mendeleev’s criticism of his dissociation theory and to arguments that the periodic system was already too old to reward.

Moissan ultimately won for his work isolating fluorine. Mendeleev was nominated again in 1907, but he died without receiving a Nobel Prize. A common mix-up is to credit Arrhenius alone with the nomination change: he strongly influenced the outcome, but Klason is identified as the person who formally proposed Moissan at the decisive meeting.