He was born in Munich, the son of a physician and Professor Extraordinary of Forensic Medicine. In 1884, he began studies in chemistry with Adolf von Baeyer and in botany with Professor C. von Naegeli, at the Botanic Institute in Munich. After a period working with Otto Fischer in Erlangen, he was awarded a doctorate from the University of Munich in 1888.
Buchner was awarded the 1907 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his biochemical investigations and his discovery of non-cellular fermentation.
During World War I, Buchner served as a Major in a front-line field hospital at Focşani, Romania. He was wounded on August 3, 1917 and died of these wounds nine days later in Munich.
In 1893, Buchner accepted a position at the University of Kiel, where he was in charge of the analytical chemistry section for three years, while continuing his research on fermentation.
Buchner attributed a similar technique, in which quartz powder was used, to Marie von Manassein in Vienna, who, he believed, introduced the process in 1872.
Buchner was appointed professor of analytical pharmaceutical chemistry at University of Tübingen in 1896, and published the discovery of cell-free fermentation in the paper, "Alkoholische Gärung ohne Hefezellen" ("Alcoholic Fermentation without Yeast Cells"), the following year.
Buchner's experiment for which he won the Nobel Prize consisted of producing a cell free extract of yeast cells and showing that this "press juice" could ferment sugar.
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