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Karl Ziegler
1898–1973 · Germany · Born in the 1800s
Nobel Chemistry 1963
Discovered organometallic catalysts that polymerize ethylene at low pressure; shared the prize with Giulio Natta.
Nobel Prize work
In 1953 Ziegler discovered that catalysts combining transition-metal compounds such as with organoaluminium compounds polymerize ethylene under ordinary pressure — the “Mülheim low-pressure polyethylene process”. Extending the catalysts to propene and other α-olefins gave crystalline, stereoregular polymers. The prize, shared with Giulio Natta, recognized the work that founded the modern polyolefin industry.