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Giulio Natta Biography

Giulio Natta

(Imperia, 1903-Bergamo, 1979) Italian chemist.In 1963 he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Karl Ziegler for his discoveries in the field of chemistry and macropolymer technology.

Giulio Natta graduated in Chemical Engineering in 1924 from the Polytechnic Institute of Milan, where he later taught analytical chemistry classes.In 1933 he joined the University of Pavia as a professor and director of the Institute of General Chemistry.In 1935 he moved to the University of Rome as a professor of Physical Chemistry.Between 1936 and 1938 he was professor and director of the Institute of Industrial Chemistry of the Polytechnic of Turin and from 1938 director of the Department of Industrial Chemistry at the Polytechnic of Milan.

Giulio Natta

At the beginning of his career he studied solids by means of X-ray and electron diffraction, techniques that he later used to study the catalysts and the structure of organic macropolymers.His research on the kinetics of the methanol synthesis reaction, the selective hydrogenation of unsaturated organic compounds and oxosynthesis allowed him to understand the mechanism of these reactions and improve the selectivity of the catalysts.

In 1938 he began to study the production of synthetic rubber and was the first to separate butadiene from but-1-ene, using a new method of extractive distillation.He has also investigated olefin polymerization since the 1930s.In 1953, with the financial help of the Montecatini company, he extended Ziegler's organometallic catalysis to stereoselective polymerization reactions, discovering new classes of polymers.

These works led to the obtaining of a thermoplastic material, isotactic polypropylene, which was industrially prepared for the first time in 1957 at the Montecatini plant in Ferrara.This product has been marketed with great success as plastic material (Moplen), synthetic fiber (Meraklon), monofilament (Merakrin) and packaging film (Moplefan).Using the X-ray diffraction technique, he was able to determine the structure of the polymer chains in the new crystalline polymers that he discovered.

Another very important aspect of his subsequent research was the synthesis of new elastomers through two different routes: 1) polymerization of butadiene in cis -1,4 polymers with a high degree of steric purity, and 2) copolymerization of ethylene with alpha-olefins (propylene).Thus very interesting materials are obtained such as saturated synthetic rubber.The vulcanization of this rubber could be done using the usual methods for natural rubber, introducing unsaturated monomeric units.

Asymmetric synthesis processes that allow obtaining optically active macromolecules from optically inactive monomers have great scientific importance due to their similarity to natural biological processes.Finally, highlight the copolymerization of different pairs of monomers to obtain other crystalline copolymers and the synthesis of several sterically ordered polymers from monomers that were not hydrocarbons.

His works have been disseminated through hundreds of publications , but his technical and scientific work has also been reflected in countless patents.He was a member of several chemical societies in different countries and an honorary member of several academies.He also received honorary degrees from various universities.

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