The Chinese Solar Machine Layer by Layer Fire in the Library The Mystery Behind Anesthesia
Iron is a junkyard dog among metals-scrappy and hard working. But when it comes to the delicate task of acting as a catalyst in joining together the molecular pieces that make up plastics, chemists have long favored purebreds: exotic metals, such as zirconium. Now, two separate teams of chemists, one at Imperial College and BP Chemicals in London, and the other at the University of North Carolina (UNC) and DuPont, have made iron-based catalysts that excel at making plastics, particularly polyethylene.
The advance could mean a simpler and cheaper way to make common plastics. "They're really good catalysts in making polyethylene very rapidly," says Richard Schrock, a catalyst chemist at MIT. What's more, says Schrock, the catalysts are intriguing because it remains a mystery precisely how and why the iron works.
To read the entire article you must log in:
Most of our content — all daily news, blogs, and videos — is free. Magazine stories are paid. To read this story, you must have a subscription or you must use a reading credit. Registration to Technology Review is free and entitles registrants to three free reading credits.
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.