Giacomo Ciamician

Giacomo Luigi Ciamician (; 27 August 1857 – 2 January 1922) was an Italian chemist and senator. He was a pioneer in photochemistry and green chemistry, and the earliest to anticipate artificial photosynthesis.

Education and career

Ciamician was born in Trieste, Austrian Empire to ethnic Armenian parents. His family had moved from Istanbul to Trieste in 1850.

Ciamician studied at University of Vienna and University of Giessen, where he received his PhD under Hugo Weidel in 1880. He then worked as an assistant for Stanislao Cannizzaro at the University of Rome, before moving to University of Padua as a lecturer in 1887. He became a professor at University of Bologna and spent the rest of his career there.

In 1910 he became the first man born in Trieste to be nominated Senator, in the XXIII Legislation of the Kingdom of Italy.

Research

Ciamician was an early researcher in the area of photochemistry, where from 1900 to 1914 he published 40 notes, and nine memoirs. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Giessen. His first photochemistry experiment was published in 1886 and was titled "On the conversion of quinone into quinol.

In 1912 he presented a paper before the 8th International Congress on Applied Chemistry later also published in Science in which he described the world's need for an energy transition to renewable energy. Ciamician saw the possibility to use photochemical devices that utilize solar energy to produce fuels to power the human civilization and called for their development. They would not only make humanity independent from coal, but could also rebalance the economic gap between rich and poor countries. His vision makes him one early proponents of artificial photosynthesis:

Honors and awards

Ciamician received the honorary Doctor of Laws (DLL) from the University of Glasgow in June 1901. University of Bologna's Department of Chemistry is named after Ciamician.

He was nominated for Nobel Prize in Chemistry nine times in 1905, 1907, 1908, 1911, 1912, 1914, 1916, 1919 and 1921.

See also

• Ciamician-Dennstedt rearrangement

External links

• Giacomo Luigi Ciamician Template:Webarchive at Michigan State University