The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1925 was awarded to Richard Zsigmondy "for his demonstration of the heterogenous nature of colloid solutions and for the methods he used, which have since become fundamental in modern colloid chemistry".

Richard Zsigmondy received his Nobel Prize one year later, in 1926. During the selection process in 1925, the Nobel Committee for Chemistry decided that none of the year's nominations met the criteria as outlined in the will of Alfred Nobel. According to the Nobel Foundation's statutes, the Nobel Prize can in such a case be reserved until the following year, and this statute was then applied. Richard Zsigmondy therefore received his Nobel Prize for 1925 one year later, in 1926.
A colloid is a substance microscopically dispersed evenly throughout another substance. A colloidal system may be solid, liquid, or gaseous. Some colloids are translucent because of the Tyndall effect, which is the scattering of light by particles in the colloid. Other colloids may be opaque or have a slight color.