How was Artturi Ilmari Virtanen awarded the Noble Prize?

Name: Artturi Ilmari Virtanen
Country: Finland Russia
Date of Bitrh: January 15, 1895 ( Helsinki Finland)
Date of Death: November 11, 1973
Subject of Study: Fermentation processes
Noble Prize Year: Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1945 for investigations directed toward improving the production and storage of protein-rich green fodder, vitally important to regions characterized by long, severe winters.
About: Virtanen studied the fermentation processes that spoil stores of silage. Knowing that the fermentation product, lactic acid, increases the acidity of the silage to a point at which destructive fermentation ceases, he developed a procedure (AIV) for adding dilute hydrochloric or sulfuric acid to newly stored silage, thereby increasing the acidity of the fodder beyond that point. he showed that acid treatment has no adverse effect on the nutritive value and edibility of the fodder and of products derived from animals fed the fodder.
Virtanen was also a professor of biochemistry at the Helsinki University of Technology and director of Finland’s Biochemical Research Institute, Helsinki, from 1931. He did valuable research on the nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the root nodules of leguminous plants, on improved methods of butter preservation, and on economical, partially synthetic cattle feeds. His AIV System as the Basis of Cattle Feeding appeared in 1943.