Development of modern solution chemistry: a search of new fields

Abstract

In order to investigate new fields and how one can approach a new field of chemistry, studies carried out by Nobel laureates are surveyed from the historical point of view and are classified into five categories. A brief discussion shows how they created new fields of chemistry and how one can open a gate to a new world. A short history of the development of solution chemistry is reviewed in connection with a view for the development of theories and methodologies used for investigations in solution chemistry. New fields and new methodologies have often been discovered by extension and combination of existing theories and methodologies with a new vision recognising existing chemistry from another side of the traditional face of chemistry. A recently developed method to determine the structure of short-lived reaction intermediates in solution, which has not been determinable by traditional analytical methods, is shown as an example. This is a method combining a stopped-flow technique and the EXAFS method. Some results obtained for metal substitution reactions of porphyrin complexes are given, and emphasis is placed on an effective combination of different methodologies to create a new method of investigation.