Max Ernst August Bodenstein (July 15, 1871 – September 3, 1942) was a German physical chemist known for his work in chemical kinetics.

In 1888, Max Bodenstein enrolled at the University of Heidelberg at the age of 17 to study chemistry with Carl Remigius Fresenius.

On 25 October 1893, he received his PhD thesis: "Über die Zersetzung des Jodwasserstoffes in der Hitze" (On the degradation of hydrogen iodide in hot temperature), with Victor Meyer as his supervisor at the University of Heidelberg.

Bodenstein studied organic chemistry and catalysis in flowing systems and discovered diffusion controlled catalytic reactions and photochemical reactions with Karl Liebermann at the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg (now Technische Universität Berlin), and physical chemistry with Walther Nernst at the University of Göttingen.

In 1923, he returned to Berlin where he accepted to be ordinary professor of physical chemistry and director of the physicochemical institute after the retirement of Walther Nernst.

Future inventor of the gas chromatograph, Erika Cremer worked with Bodenstein at this time and wrote her dissertation on the hydrogen-chlorine chain reaction in 1927.

Victor Henri wrote in 1902: "M. Bodenstein to whom I owe much valuable advice",[6] in particular on the kinetic description of the invertase enzyme.

On 21 November 1936, he was awarded the "August Wilhelm von Hofmann votive medal" from the "German Chemical Society" (Deutsche chemische Gesellschaft).

On 13 September 1983, a tablet commemorating Max Bodenstein and Walther Nernst was unveiled at the Physicochemical Institute of the University of Berlin, Bunsenstraße 1, Berlin-Mitte.