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Science 8 March 1996:
Vol. 271. no. 5254, p. 1363
DOI: 10.1126/science.271.5254.1363
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Research News

Robert F. Service

Plastics are big business, and the catalysts that create them are the key. One breed of catalysts links polymer building blocks called alpha-olefins and employs rings of carbons to do so. But now researchers, by inserting boron atoms into the rings, are developing a new class of catalysts--and possibly whole new classes of polymers, too. The borons are more "electron-hungry" than carbons, and can be used to change, or "tune," the electrical behavior of the catalyst, which affects how it puts the building blocks together.




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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)