Giulio Natta Biography - Nobel Prize Winner (1963)

Giulio Natta (Imperia, 26 February 1903 - Bergamo, 2 May 1979) was an Italian chemist, who won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1963 with Karl Ziegler for work on high polymers. He was born in Imperia, Italy, on February 26, 1903. He graduated in Chemical Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano in 1924. In 1927 he passed the exams for becoming a professor there. In 1933 he became a full professor and the director of the Institute of General Chemistry of Pavia University, where he stayed until 1935. In that year he was appointed full professor in physical chemistry at the University of Rome. From 1936 to 1938 he moved as a full professor and director of the Institute of Industrial Chemistry at the Politecnico di Torino. In 1938 he took the head of the Department of chemical engineering at Politecnico di Milano university, in a somehow criticized manner, when his predecessor Mario Giacomo Levi was forced to step down as a consequence of racial laws against Jews being introduced in fascist Italy.

His work at the Politecnico led to the improvement of earlier work by Ziegler and to the development of the Ziegler-Natta catalyst. He won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1963 with Karl Ziegler for work on high polymers.

Prof. Natta died on May 2, 1979