Harvesting the Fruits of Innovation — Polypropylene

Abstract

The scientific community and the general public had heard nothing of the Ziegler/Natta collaboration or contention, but they suddenly became very much aware of Giulio Natta when his discovery of polypropylene made the news. As in the case of Ziegler polyethylene, the word spread fast and far, and through many of the same channels. Once again, Herman Mark was among the first to know. He visited Natta soon after the latter had written, ‘Today we made polypropylene’, but before he had published, or Montecatini had announced, the discovery. Natta told Mark that he had a crystalline polypropylene, but pledged him to secrecy. This must have put Mark in a somewhat uncomfortable position for a time, since the analogy to Ziegler’s crystalline polyethylene was obvious, yet he was not free to discuss it with his German friend.

It is perhaps the first time in the history of macromolecular chemistry that a scientific discovery has been followed so rapidly by such a vast amount of research in scientific and industrial laboratories.−Giulio Natta