And the Nobel goes to Gerhard Ertl of the Max Planck Society’s Fritz-Habert Institute for his studies of chemical processes on solid surfaces (announcement). On his birthday, too!

According to the press release

Ertl was one of the first to see the potential of new techniques [developed in the semiconductor industry]. Step by step he has created a methodology for surface chemistry by demonstrating how different experimental procedures can be used to provide a complete picture of a surface reaction. This science requires advanced high-vacuum experimental equipment as the aim is to observe how individual layers of atoms and molecules behave on the extremely pure surface of a metal, for instance. It must therefore be possible to determine exactly which element is admitted to the system. Contamination could jeopardize all the measurements. Acquiring a complete picture of the reaction requires great precision and a combination of many different experimental techniques.

Here’s his lab’s website.

Chemists will presumably be happy that this year’s prize goes to one of their own — there have been dark murmurs about chemistry prizes going to biologists in recent years. Anyone with a bet on the prize at the Chembark blog can expect a 15 to 1 payoff.

See below the fold for more coverage as it happens.

For coverage of yesterday’s Nobel for Physics, awarded to Albert Fert and Peter Grünberg of the Jülich Research Centre for the discovery of giant magnetoresistance, see this post.

For coverage of Monday’s Nobel for Physiology or Medicine, awarded to Mario Capecchi, Martin Evans and Oliver Smithies for knockout mice, see this post.

UPDATE

Derek Low has a nice blog post on why this is all so important, and how before Ertl much of what we now understand was ‘witchcraft’. “Metal-surface reactions like this are crucial to industrial civilization, and their importance is, if anything, growing. If we’re ever going to get fuel cells to work economically, use hydrogen as an energy medium, or do a better job cleaning up industrial wastes, we’re going to be using such things,” he notes over at In the Pipeline.

And the almost obligatory link to saving the world from climate change has also appeared. “I am delighted that the prize recognizes a field of chemistry that often receives little public attention, and yet has transformed lives in so many ways. … In the future, this research will help us tap new sources of renewable fuels, for instance, and produce smaller, more powerful electronics products,” says Catherine Hunt, president of the American Chemical Society (press release).

Nature’s coverage is now online.