From the Nobel Speech –
“Professor Natta. You have succeeded in preparing by a new method macro molecules having a spacially regular structure. The scientific and technical consequences of your discovery are immense and cannot even now be fully estimated. The Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences wishes to express its appreciation by awarding you the Nobel Prize. Please accept the best wishes of the Academy. I would also like to express the admiration of the academy for the intensity with which you are continuing your work in the face of difficulties.”
From Nobel Lectures, Chemistry 1963 – 1970 (www.nobel.se)
Giulio Natta was born on the 26th February1903, at Imperia, Genoa. He was an Italian chemist who made important contributions to the understanding of polymers – chemical compounds made of a string of simple molecules. His work helped the development of materials that are used to make films, plastics and fibres and synthetic rubber. For his work, he shared the 1963 Nobel Chemistry award with Karl Zeigler of Germany (Zeigler developed catalysts that aid in the manufacture of plastics with greater uniformity, hardness, strength, and resistance to heat). Their research made it possible for us to give properties to man made plastics.
Education:
Natta studied mathematics at the University of Genoa to begin with, but soon switched to Chemical Engineering at the Polytechnic of Milan. He graduated in 1924, aged 214, and began to teach there in 1927. From 1933 to 1938, he worked in the Pavia University, the University of Rome and the Polytechnic of Turin, and was a full professor and director of the Department of Industrial Chemistry in Milan Polytechnic from 1938 until his retirement in 1973.
Research and discoveries:
In his early work, Natta explored polymers and catalysts (substances which speed up chemical reactions but remain unchanged after the reaction has finished) and their uses in industrial processes. In 1938 he proposed a way of making artificial rubber. He also succeeded in producing polypropylene (a polymer of great strength and high melting point – which has since become indispensable in industry). He used X-Ray investigations to determine the exact structure of new polymers he discovered.
Natta became best known for his extension of the work of Karl Zeigler on the production of hydrocarbon polymers by means of organomettalic catalysts. Zeigler had converted ethene to polyethene by a low pressure process. Natta's improved process allowed him to produce “isostatic” (a term coined by his wife) polypropene in which the side-chain methyl groups are ordered in one direction along the polymer chain. Such polymers have high melting points and great strength. Natta worked in conjunction with an industrial firm, Montecatini, to produce this isostatic polypropylene. They developed it on an industrial scale in their Ferrara plant in 1957. This product has been successfully marketed by the names of Moplen (a plastic material), Meraklon (a synthetic fibre) and as Moplefan (a packing film).
1954 – Giulio Natta in Milan synthesises polypropylene, and with Karl Zeigler, develops the Zeigler-Natta process for making polyolefins at ordinary pressures using organometallic catalysts.
The work on vulcanised rubber was research into the synthesis of completely new elastomers – polymerisation of butadiene to form cis-1, 4 polymers, and copolymerisation of ethylene with other alpha-olefins. In the field of macromolecular chemistry, other interesting results obtained by Natta include the synthesis of various sterically ordered polymers of non-hydrocarbon monomers, and also the synthesis of crystalline alternating copolymers of different couples of monomers.
Recognition:
Mr Natta was world renowned for his work, and on top of the Nobel prize he was awarded in 1963, he received countless gold medals, for example from the Milan district, he received honorary degrees from many of the famous Italian universities, such as the Turin University and also the Mainz University, he received the John Scott award from the board of Directors of the City Trust of Philadelphia, he was made an honorary member of the Austrian (1960), Belgian (1062) and Swiss (1963) Chemical societies.
Professor Natta’s scientific and technical activity is recorded in over 700 published papers of which approx. 500 concern stereoregular polymers, and by a large number of patents in many different countries.
He was an honorary member of countless societies and clubs, and even after his death (1979), the fruits of his labour are still rewarding millions.
Resources – www.nobel.ie
www.chemical-industry.org.uk/chemfiles
Microsoft Encarta Encyclopaedia 2001
LINKS:
For more information on:
Zeigler Natta Process