This list of Russian chemists includes the famous chemists and material scientists of the Russian Federation, the Soviet Union, the Russian Empire and other predecessor states of Russia.
Alphabetical list
A
- Aleksandr Arbuzov, discovered Arbuzov reaction.
B
- Alexander Baykov, an academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
- Ernest Beaux, inventor of Chanel No. 5, "the world's most legendary fragrance"
- Nikolay Beketov, inventor of aluminothermy, a founder of physical chemistry
- Friedrich Konrad Beilstein, proposed the Beilstein test for the detection of halogens, author of the Beilstein database in organic chemistry
- Boris Belousov, chemist and biophysicist, discoverer of Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, a classical example of non-equilibrium thermodynamics
- Alexander Borodin, chemist and composer, the author of the famous opera Prince Igor, discovered Borodin reaction, co-discovered Aldol reaction
- Aleksandr Butlerov, discovered hexamine, formaldehyde and formose reaction (the first synthesis of sugar), the first to incorporate double bonds into structural formulae, a founder of organic chemistry and the theory of chemical structure
C
- Dmitry Chernov, founder of modern metallography, discovered polymorphism in metals, built the iron-carbon phase diagram
- Aleksei Chichibabin, discovered Chichibabin pyridine synthesis, Bodroux–Chichibabin aldehyde synthesis and Chichibabin reaction
- Lev Chugaev, discoverer of Chugaev elimination in organic chemistry
- Karl Ernst Claus, chemist and botanist, discoverer of ruthenium
- Valeriy Chernyshev, chemist, honourable inventor of Russia, major specialist in nitrogen chemistry
D
- Nikolay Demyanov, discoverer of Demjanov rearrangement in organic chemistry
- Aleksandr Dianin, discoverer of Bisphenol A and Dianin's compound
F
- Constantin Fahlberg, inventor of saccharin, the first artificial sweetener
- Alexey Favorsky, discoverer of Favorskii rearrangement and Favorskii reaction in organic chemistry
- Alexander Frumkin, a founder of modern electrochemistry, author of the theory of electrode reactions
- Evgraf Fedorov, first to enumerate all of the 230 space groups of crystals, thus founding the modern crystallography
G
- Andre Geim, inventor of graphene, developer of gecko tape, Nobel Prize in Physics winner
- Igor Gorynin, inventor of weldable titanium alloys, high strength aluminium alloys, and many radiation-hardened steels
H
- Germain Henri Hess, (1802–1850), Swiss-born Russian chemist. Namesake of Hess's law.
- Victor Henri (1872–1940), French physical chemist of Russian parents.
I
- Vladimir Ipatieff, inventor of Ipatieff bomb, a founder of petrochemistry
- Isidore, legendary inventor of the Russian vodka
J
- Boris Jacobi, re-discovered electroplating and initiated its practical usage
K
- Pyotr Kapitsa, discovered superfluidity while studying liquid helium, Nobel Prize in Physics winner
- Salambek Khadzhiyev, petrochemist who specialized in the production of low-pour, high-density petroleum fuels transformations of hydrocarbons on zeolite
- Morris Kharasch, inventor of anti-microbial compound thimerosal
- Gottlieb Kirchhoff, discoverer of glucose
- Ivan Knunyants, inventor of poly-caprolactam, founder of Soviet school of fluorocarbon's chemistry, a developer of Soviet chemical weapons
L
- Sergei Lebedev, inventor of polybutadiene, the first commercially viable synthetic rubber
- Mikhail Lomonosov, polymath, coined the term physical chemistry, re-discovered smalt and founded the scientific study of glass, proved that the phlogiston theory was false, the first to record the freezing of mercury
- Aleksandr Loran, inventor of fire fighting foam
M
- Vladimir Markovnikov, author of the Markovnikov's rule in organic chemistry, discoverer of naphthenes
- Yurii Sh. Matros, Russian-American chemist and chemical engineer, developer of Matros reactor, founder of Matros Technologies Inc.
- Dmitri Mendeleyev, invented the Periodic table of chemical elements, the first to predict the properties of elements yet to be discovered, invented pyrocollodion, developer of pipelines and a prominent researcher of vodka
- Nikolai Menshutkin, discoverer of Menshutkin reaction in organic chemistry
N
- Sergey Namyotkin, prominent researcher of terpenes, discoverer of Nametkin rearrangement
- Konstantin Novoselov, inventor of graphene, developer of gecko tape, Nobel Prize in Physics winner
O
- Anatoly V. Oleynik, researcher in photochemistry.
P
- Ilya Prigogine, researcher of dissipative structures, complex systems and irreversibility, Nobel Prize winner
R
- Sergey Reformatsky, discoverer of Reformatsky reaction in organic chemistry
S
- Nikolay Semyonov, chemical physicist, author of the chain reaction theory, Nobel Prize winner
- Carl Schmidt, analyzed the crystal structure of many biochemicals, proved that animal and plant cells are chemically similar
- Vladimir Shukhov, polymath, inventor of chemical cracking
- Mikhail Shultz, physical chemist and artist; one of the creators the glass electrode theory; author of several thermodynamic methods.
T
- Nikolai Trifonov, chemistry professor mentioned in The Gulag Archipelago
- Mikhail Tsvet, botanist, inventor of chromatography
V
- Victor Veselago, first researcher of materials with negative permittivity and permeability
- Vera Bogdanovskaia, first woman to have died in the cause of chemistry due to a laboratory explosion
W
- Paul Walden, discovered the Walden inversion and ethylammonium nitrate (the first room temperature ionic liquid)
Z
- Alexander Zaitsev, author of the Zaitsev's rule in organic chemistry
- Nikolai Zinin, discovered benzidine, co-discovered aniline, the first President of Russian Physical-Chemical Society
- Nikolay Zelinsky, inventor of activated charcoal gas mask in Europe during World War I, co-discoverer of Hell–Volhard–Zelinsky halogenation, a founder of petrochemistry
- Anatol Zhabotinsky, discoverer of Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, a classical example of non-equilibrium thermodynamics