German Benjamin List and Scottish-born David MacMillan have won the 2021 Nobel prize in chemistry for developing tools for building molecules that have helped make new drugs and are more environmentally friendly.

They share the 10-million Swedish crown ($1.57 million) prize for their separate work on asymmetric organocatalysis, which the award-giving body said was “a new and ingenious tool for molecule building”.

“Organic catalysts can be used to drive multitudes of chemical reactions,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement.

“Using these reactions, researchers can now more efficiently construct anything from new pharmaceuticals to molecules that can capture light in solar cells.”

"Catalysis is incredible!"

Watch this video with our new #NobelPrize laureate David MacMillan to learn more about his work. https://t.co/gYzi1Lplub

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 6, 2021

Catalysts are molecules that remain stable while enabling or speeding up chemical reactions performed in labs or large industrial reactors.

Prior to the laureates’ breakthrough findings at the turn of the millennium, only certain metals and complex enzymes were known to do the trick.

The academy said the new generation of catalysts were both more friendly for the environment and cheaper to produce and have been the key to making new substances such as pharmaceuticals, plastics, perfumes and flavours.

Professor List, of the Max-Planck-Institut fuer Kohlenforschung, Muelheim an der Ruhr, Germany, and Professor MacMillan, of Princeton University in the US, share the prize in equal parts for breakthroughs achieved independently of one another.

"I always like to go to the extremes. Can we do things that were just impossible before?"

– 2021 chemistry laureate Benjamin List talks about his future research at this morning's #NobelPrize press conference. pic.twitter.com/P0L6fSqHqh

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 6, 2021

The Nobel prizes, for achievements in science, literature and peace, were created and funded in the will of Swedish dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel.

They have been awarded since 1901, with the economics prize first handed out in 1969.

The chemistry award is the third of this year’s crop of Nobel prizes and follows the prizes for medicine or physiology, and physics, announced earlier this week.

Benjamin List – awarded the #NobelPrize in Chemistry – wondered whether an entire enzyme was really required to obtain a catalyst. He tested whether an amino acid called proline could catalyse a chemical reaction. It worked brilliantly. pic.twitter.com/YXpA0RnbPm

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 6, 2021

Previous winners of the chemistry prize include Marie Curie and Fredrick Sanger, who won twice.

Seven women have won, including last year’s laureates Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna who were awarded it for creating genetic ‘scissors’ that can edit DNA.

2021 #NobelPrize laureate David MacMillan worked with metal catalysts that were easily destroyed by moisture. He wondered whether he could develop a more durable type of catalyst using simple organic molecules. One of these proved to be excellent at asymmetric catalysis. pic.twitter.com/yEThOzVwuD

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 6, 2021