The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1903 was awarded to Svante Arrhenius "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered to the advancement of chemistry by his electrolytic theory of dissociation".
 

During the first year of the last century Volta made the first electric pile. By studying the chemical actions of the electric current thus obtained Davy in Britain and Berzelius and Hisinger in Sweden arrived at the conclusion that the relationship between electrical and chemical phenomena was one of cause and effect. Around 1880 Svante Arrhenius - then studying for a doctorate in science - arrived, as a result of his researches into the movement of electric current through solutions, at a new explanation of the causes of chemical phenomena, i.e. he attributed them to electrical charges contained in the constituents of reacting substances. In the time of Berzelius this notion rested on a qualitative basis only, whereas Arrhenius's theory determined it quantitatively, thus allowing it to be treated mathematically. One of the most important consequences of Arrhenius's theory was the completion of the great generalizations for which the first Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to Van't Hoff. Without the support of Arrhenius's theory that of Van't Hoff would never have gained general recognition.