Karl ZieglerBorn 26 Nov 1898; died 12 Aug 1973 at age 74.German chemist who shared the 1963 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Giulio Natta “for their discoveries in the field of the chemistry and technology of high polymers”improving the quality of plastics. Polymer molecules are long chains of thousands of atoms, made by connecting together repeating units of a small molecule (the monomer). Ziegler found peculiar electrical forces in a bond between an aluminium and a carbon atom in a hydrocarbon chain: reactive molecules are drawn in and sandwiched between these two atoms, increasing the length of the chain. When the chain is long enough, detaching the aluminium stops further growth of the molecule. The combination of aluminium compounds with other metallic compounds gives Ziegler catalysts.. |
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