"There's so much plastic in this culture that vinyl leopard skin is becoming an endangered synthetic."
Lily Tomlin, comedian and actress
Polypropylene is one of the modem world's most important plastics. It is used as an artificial fiber in carpets, upholstery, and industrial ropes, as well as in food and toiletry bottles, toys, furniture, and car components. Polymers are very common in nature because they are the major components of hair, bones, muscles, and plant fibers. In the 1920s, scientists were working on how to make polymer chains longer and heavier, and therefore more useful. One of the first breakthroughs came in England in 1931, when polyethylene—the first man-made polymer with a high molecular weight—was made. Polyethylene dominated the global plastics market, but scientists were disappointed by its material weakness. The race to develop a better plastic was on.
Italian scientist Giulio Natta (1903-1979) had been working with the German scientist Karl Ziegler (1898- 1973) on developing catalysts to help create new polymers. Based on titanium, these new Ziegler-Natta catalysts opened up a whole new way of creating polymers, and Natta was quickto exploit them. In 1954 he managed to polymerize propylene, but, in what is seen by many as an act of betrayal, he applied for a patent before telling Ziegler about his discovery.
This heralded a legal fight, during which it became clear that other groups around the world had also managed to make polypropylene using Ziegler-Natta catalysts. Eventually, the lawyers decided that, while Natta had the right to claim polypropylene, he must pay 30 percent of all royalties to Ziegler. The rift between the two men lasted until 1963 when they jointly shared a Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
