Between 1859 and 1861, he worked on

Between 1859 and 1861, he worked on the
capillarity of liquids and the workings of the
spectroscope in Heidelberg. In late August
1861 he wrote his first book on the
spectroscope. On 4 April 1862 he became
engaged to Feozva Nikitichna Leshcheva, and
they married on 27 April 1862 at Nikolaev
Engineering Institute 's church in Saint
Petersburg (where he taught). [8] Mendeleev
became a professor at the Saint Petersburg
Technological Institute and Saint Petersburg
State University in 1864 and 1865,
respectively. In 1865 he became Doctor of
Science for his dissertation "On the
Combinations of Water with Alcohol". He
achieved tenure in 1867, and by 1871 had
transformed Saint Petersburg into an
internationally recognized center for chemistry
research. In 1876, he became obsessed with
Anna Ivanova Popova and began courting her;
in 1881 he proposed to her and threatened
suicide if she refused. His divorce from
Leshcheva was finalized one month after he
had married Popova (on 2 April [9] ) in early
1882. Even after the divorce, Mendeleev was
technically a bigamist ; the Russian Orthodox
Church required at least seven years before
lawful remarriage. His divorce and the
surrounding controversy contributed to his
failure to be admitted to the Russian Academy
of Sciences (despite his international fame by
that time). His daughter from his second
marriage, Lyubov, became the wife of the
famous Russian poet Alexander Blok. His
other children were son Vladimir (a sailor, he
took part in the notable Eastern journey of
Nicholas II ) and daughter Olga, from his first
marriage to Feozva, and son Ivan and twins
from Anna.
Though Mendeleev was widely honored by
scientific organizations all over Europe,
including (in 1882) the Davy Medal from the
Royal Society of London (which later also
awarded him the Copley Medal in 1905), he
resigned from Saint Petersburg University on
17 August 1890.
Mendeleev also investigated the composition
of petroleum, and helped to found the first oil
refinery in Russia. He recognized the
importance of petroleum as a feedstock for
petrochemicals. He is credited with a remark
that burning petroleum as a fuel "would be
akin to firing up a kitchen stove with bank
notes." [10]
In 1905, Mendeleev was elected a member of
the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The
following year the Nobel Committee for
Chemistry recommended to the Swedish
Academy to award the Nobel Prize in
Chemistry for 1906 to Mendeleev for his
discovery of the periodic system. The
Chemistry Section of the Swedish Academy
supported this recommendation. The Academy
was then supposed to approve the Committee
choice as it has done in almost every case.
Unexpectedly, at the full meeting of the
Academy, a dissenting member of the Nobel
Committee, Peter Klason , proposed the
candidacy of Henri Moissan whom he favored.
Svante Arrhenius, although not a member of
the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, had a
great deal of influence in the Academy and
also pressed for the rejection of Mendeleev,
arguing that the periodic system was too old
to acknowledge its discovery in 1906.
According to the contemporaries, Arrhenius
was motivated by the grudge he held against
Mendeleev for his critique of Arrhenius's
dissociation theory. After heated arguments,
the majority of the Academy voted for
Moissan. The attempts to nominate Mendeleev
in 1907 were again frustrated by the absolute
opposition of Arrhenius. [11]
In 1907, Mendeleev died at the age of 72 in
Saint Petersburg from influenza. The crater
Mendeleev on the Moon , as well as element
number 101, the radioactive mendelevium,
are named after him.