Svante Arrhenius. Portrait of Swedish Nobel prize- winning chemist Svante August Arrhenius (1859- 1927). Arrhenius studied chemistry and physics at Uppsala University. In 1883 he proposed that substances were partly converted to an active form when dissolved. This active part was responsible for conductivity. The merit of this doctoral research went recognised. Arrhenius later found that aqueous solutions conduct electricity because the solute divides into charged ions in water. This finding won him the 1903 Nobel Prize for chemistry. He also elucidated the effect of tempe- rature on reaction rates (Arrhenius equation), and first recognised the Greenhouse Effect.