Tsvet, Mikhail Semyonovich

Mikhail Semyonovich Tsvet, Tsvet also spelled Tsvett, orTswett, (born May 14, 1872, Asti, Italy—died June 26, 1919, Voronezh, Russian S.F.S.R.), Russian botanist who developed the adsorption chromatography technique of separating plant pigments by extracting them from leaves with ether and alcohol and percolating the solution through a column of calcium carbonate.

Tsvet studied in Geneva, Switz., receiving his doctorate in 1896, and in 1901 he received a degree from the University of Kazan in Russia. In 1902 he became a laboratory assistant at the University of Warsaw, and in 1908 he began teaching botany and microbiology at the Warsaw Technical University. Tsvet took part in the university’s removal to Moscow and then to Nizhny Novgorod during World War I. In 1917 he became professor and director of the botanical garden at Yuryev (later Tartu) University in Estonia, which in 1918 was transferred to Voronezh.

Tsvet was noted for his research on plant pigments, especially chlorophyll, of which he discovered several new forms, and the carotenoids, a term he first coined.