Sabatier, sah bah TYAY, Paul (1854-1941), was a French organic chemist who received the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1912 for discovering that nickel is a good hydrogenation catalyst. In other words, the presence of nickel activates or speeds up hydrogenation, a process that adds hydrogen to molecules of carbon compounds (see Hydrogenation). Sabatier showed that ethylene gas could be converted to ethane gas by passing the ethylene over powdered nickel. Sabatier shared the prize with Francois Grignard, also of France (see Grignard, Francois Auguste Victor).