Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the “development of the method of metatesis in organic chemistry”
2005/10/05 Rementeria Argote, Nagore - Elhuyar Zientziaren Komunikazioa
Three chemists will receive this year the Nobel Prize in Chemistry: Yves Chauvin (France, 1930), Robert H. Grubbs (USA, 1942) and Richard R. Schrock (AEB,1945). These three chemists will be awarded for their work in the development of the metatesis method. The method of metatesis is a method used in organic chemistry for the generation of new compounds.
Metatesis, in terms of language, consists in displacing the internal phonemes of a word (for example, the cloud spreads). As far as organic synthesis is concerned, it is about moving atomic groups from one place to another, within an organic molecule or from one molecule to another.
In this pathway of synthesis, simple and double bonds between carbon atoms are used, for which catalysts are essential.
Metatesis began to be used as a method of synthesis in the 1950s, but until 1971 they did not know how the reaction occurred. Chauvin explained the reaction pathway of metatesis. And he explained what metals play as catalysts and how.
An adequate catalyst is fundamental in this path of synthesis. Therefore, after Chauvin's work, many chemists sought efficient catalysts. As the first effective catalyst, a metal compound, was obtained by Schrock in 1990. And two years later, Grubbs achieved an even more efficient catalyst, unlike the previous one, stable in the air.
The Nobel Foundation has stressed that thanks to the metaphor, the chemical industry has advanced a lot, especially the development of drugs and plastics. And thanks to the work of these three chemicals, the synthesis of many compounds is now more effective, simple and clean.
