Archer Martin, 92; Chemist Won Share of Nobel Prize in 1952

Archer Martin, 92, a chemist who shared the Nobel Prize in 1952 for his work in separating complex mixtures, died July 28. No place or specific cause of death was listed, although Martin had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease.

The technique for which Martin and his colleague Richard Synge won the chemistry Nobel is known as partition chromatography. The term refers to the technique of separating and isolating the fundamental chemicals in complex solutions.

Developed while they were working for the wool industry in the 1940s, their technique enabled scientists to analyze the structures of proteins and other complex organic substances.

The London-born son of a doctor and nurse, Martin earned bachelor’s and doctoral degrees in biochemistry at Cambridge University, and performed research successively for the Wool Industries Research Assn., the Boots pharmacy chain and for Britain’s Medical Research Council.

During his retirement years, he taught at the University of Sussex and was a visiting professor at the University of Houston in Texas and the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland.