Daniel Douglas Eley. 1 October 1914—3 September 2015

Abstract

Professor Daniel Douglas Eley OBE FRS FRSC was an exceptional physical chemist who worked on many fundamental problems. Dan's work pushed the boundaries of our understanding of chemistry across the whole discipline and into biology and physics. Dan was born near Liverpool in 1914. He studied at the University of Manchester during the 1930s, obtaining a PhD in 1937 with Hungarian–British polymath, Michael Polanyi (FRS 1944). Dan and his research group were the first to demonstrate that organic compounds can act as semiconductors, a scientific breakthrough that eventually led to the colour displays on many of the latest smartphones. In 1954, Dan was appointed as the first professor of physical chemistry at the University of Nottingham. His work on DNA led to him showing for the first time that molecules of DNA could conduct electricity, a discovery that underpins a whole area of present day biophysical research. Another of his interests was the conversion of ortho -hydrogen and para -hydrogen, an effect that is now exploited to enhance signal-to-noise in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Perhaps, more than anything, Dan's name is forever linked with that of the supervisor of Dan's second PhD, Eric Rideal FRS, in the Eley–Rideal mechanism for hydrogenation on heterogeneous catalysts.