Lev Aleksandrovich Chugaev

Lev Aleksandrovich Chugaev (; 16 October 1873 – 26 September 1922) was a Russian chemist. At the height of his career, he was professor of chemistry at the University of Petersburg, being the successor to Dmitri Mendeleev. He was active in the fields of inorganic chemistry, especially platinum group complexes, as well as organic chemistry. He is also known as Leo Aleksandrovich Tschugaeff or Tschugaev.

Contributions to coordination chemistry

Chugaev also studied complexes of hydrazine. One of his complexes, since also called Chugaev's salt, was the product of the reaction of platinum(II) salts with methyl isocyanide and hydrazine. After many decades, this compound was shown to be a carbene complex, probably the first metal carbene complex ever reported.

Contributions to organic chemistry He discovered the Chugaev reaction during his work on thujene and terpene.