Ivan Lyudvigovich Knunyants (Armenian: Իվան Կնունյանց, Russian: Иван Людвигович Кнунянц; 4 June [O.S.

22 May] 1906 – 21 December 1990), was a Soviet chemist of Armenian origin, academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, a major general and engineer, who significantly contributed to the advancement of Soviet chemistry.

Graduated from Moscow Bauman Highest Technical School (MVTU) 1928, student of Aleksei Chichibabin.

He was one of the pioneers of the synthesis of poly-caprolactam (capron, nylon-6, polyamide-6), founder of Soviet school of fluorocarbon's chemistry, one of major developers of Soviet chemical weapons program, also an author of a few drugs for chemotherapy of cancer.

He proposed the method of getting the 5-hydroxypentan-2-one from ethyl ethanoate and oxirane, also used in the industrial synthesis of vitamin B.