Kenichi Fukui (福井謙一) (October 4 1918 – January 9 1998) was a Japanese chemist.
He was co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1981 with Roald Hoffman, for their independent investigations into the mechanisms of chemical reactions.
His prize winning work focused on the role of Frontier Orbitals in chemical reactions. Specifically that molecules share loosely bonded electrons which occupy the frontier orbitals, that is the Highest Occupied Molecular Orbital (HOMO) and the Lowest Unoccupied Molecular Orbital (LUMO).
He was professor of physical chemistry at Kyoto University from 1951 to 1982. He was president of the Kyoto Institute of Technology between 1982 and 1988.
Kenichi Fukui died in 1998.