Natta, Giulio

Name:
Natta, Giulio
Detailed information:
(1903–1979). An Italian chemist born in Imperia on the Riviera, corecipient (with Karl Ziegler) of the Nobel Prize in 1963 for his fundamental work on catalytic polymerization. In 1954 he developed isotactic polypropylene at his laboratory at the Polytechnic Institute of Milan, which led to wide application of various stereospecific polymers with organometallic catalysts such as triethylaluminum. He was for many years consultant for the Montecatini chemical firm. The researchers of Natta, together with those of Ziegler, made possible the chemical manipulation of monomers to form specifically ordered 3-dimensional polymers having predetermined properties, to which the term tailor-made is often applied.