In 1985, the Priestley Medal was awarded to Henry Taube by the American Chemical Society “to recognize distinguished services to chemistry.”

By using isotopic oxygen labelling and various NMR techniques Taube was the first to determine the number of water molecules in the inner coordination sphere of aqueous metal cations. In a classic Chemical Reviews paper (1952) he presented a correlation between ligand substitution rates and the electronic configuration of the transition metal ion.

Taube is best known for research on the mechanisms of oxidation-reduction (redox) reactions, and for distinguishing “inner-sphere” reactions that involve atom or group transfer from “outer-sphere” reactions, which leave the coordination spheres of the partners intact. For his pioneering work on the mechanism of inorganic oxidation-reduction reactions Taube received the 1983 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.