Ivan Vladimirovich Tananaev

Born May 22 (June 4), 1904, in the village of Serpovoe, in what is now Morshansk Raion, Tambov Oblast. Soviet chemist. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1958; corresponding member, 1946). Member of the CPSU since 1942.

In 1925, Tananaev graduated from the Kiev Polytechnic Institute, where he worked until 1934. He then worked at the N. S. Kurnakov Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, where he became head of a laboratory in 1939 and a department head in 1949. At various times during this period he also headed the subdepartment of chemistry of the Moscow Physical Engineering Institute and the subdepartment of inorganic chemistry at the Moscow Institute of Fine Chemical Technology. He has been a member of the division of inorganic chemistry of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) since 1959. He has been editor in chief of the journal Neorganicheskie materialy (Inorganic Materials) since 1965.

Tananaev’s main works are devoted to inorganic and analytical chemistry of rare elements, particularly their fluorides, ferrocyanides, and phosphates, and to the application and development of physicochemical analysis of inorganic systems.

Tananaev was awarded the State Prize of the USSR in 1949, 1951, and 1971. He received the D. I. Mendeleev Gold Medal in 1973. He has been awarded two Orders of Lenin, four other orders, and various medals.