The chemical industry comprises the companies and other organizations that develop and produce industrial, specialty and other chemicals. Central to the modern world economy, it converts raw materials into commodity chemicals for industrial and consumer products. It includes industries for petrochemicals such as polymers for plastics and synthetic fibers; inorganic chemicals such as acids and alkalis; agricultural chemicals such as fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides; and other categories such as industrial gases, speciality chemicals and pharmaceuticals.
The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all degree levels and in all fields of chemistry, chemical engineering, and related fields. It is one of the world's largest scientific societies by membership. The ACS is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and holds a congressional charter under Title 36 of the United States Code. Its headquarters are located in Washington, D.C., and it has a large concentration of staff in Columbus, Ohio.
Hermann Staudinger was a German organic chemist who demonstrated the existence of macromolecules, which he characterized as polymers. For this work he received the 1953 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Polymer science or macromolecular science is a subfield of materials science concerned with polymers, primarily synthetic polymers such as plastics and elastomers. The field of polymer science includes researchers in multiple disciplines including chemistry, physics, and engineering.
Craig Jon Hawker is an Australian-born chemist. His research has focused on the interface between organic and polymer chemistry, with emphasis on the design, synthesis, and application of well-defined macromolecular structures in biotechnology, microelectronics, and surface science. Hawker holds more than 45 U.S. patents, and he has co-authored over 300 papers in the areas of nanotechnology, materials science, and chemistry. He was listed as one of the top 100 most cited chemists worldwide over the decade 1992–2002, and again in 2000–2010.
Tobin Jay Marks is an inorganic chemistry Professor, the Vladimir N. Ipatieff Professor of Catalytic Chemistry, Professor of Material Science and Engineering, Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and Professor of Applied Physics at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Among the themes of his research are synthetic organo-f-element and early-transition metal organometallic chemistry, polymer chemistry, materials chemistry, homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis, molecule-based photonic materials, superconductivity, metal-organic chemical vapor deposition, and biological aspects of transition metal chemistry.
The Willard Gibbs Award, presented by the Chicago Section of the American Chemical Society, was established in 1910 by William A. Converse (1862–1940), a former Chairman and Secretary of the Chicago Section of the society and named for Professor Josiah Willard Gibbs (1839–1903) of Yale University. Gibbs, whose formulation of the Phase Rule founded a new science, is considered by many to be the only American-born scientist whose discoveries are as fundamental in nature as those of Newton and Galileo.
Ruth Mary Rogan Benerito was an American chemist and inventor known for her work related to the textile industry, notably including the development of wash-and-wear cotton fabrics. She held 55 patents.
John E. Bercaw is an American chemist and Centennial Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus at the California Institute of Technology.
Herman Francis Mark was an Austrian-American chemist regarded for his contributions to the development of polymer science. Mark's x-ray diffraction work on the molecular structure of fibers provided important evidence for the macromolecular theory of polymer structure. Together with Houwink he formulated an equation, now called the Mark–Houwink or Mark–Houwink–Sakurada equation, describing the dependence of the intrinsic viscosity of a polymer on its relative molecular mass. He was a long-time faculty at Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. In 1946, he established the Journal of Polymer Science.
Carl Shipp "Speed" Marvel was an American chemist who specialized in polymer chemistry. He made important contributions to U.S. synthetic rubber program during World War II, and later worked at developing polybenzimidazoles, temperature-resistant polymers that are used in the aerospace industry, in fire-fighting equipment, and as a replacement for asbestos. He has been described as "one of the world's outstanding organic chemists" and received numerous awards, including the 1956 Priestley Medal and the 1986 National Medal of Science, presented by President Ronald Reagan.
James Carl Stevens, a chemist, was the first Distinguished Fellow, at the Dow Chemical Company, retiring in January 2015. His area of expertise is organometallic chemistry and his primary field of research is in the area of polyolefin catalysis, particularly in the area of polyethylene, polypropylene, ethylene/styrene copolymers, and the combinatorial discovery of organometallic single-site catalysts. Stevens major contributions have come in the discovery and commercial implementation of single-site polyolefin catalysts. He invented and led the commercialization of constrained geometry catalyst for the polymerization of olefins. These have been commercialized by Dow as a number of polymers, elastomers and plostomers.
The Science History Institute is an institution that preserves and promotes understanding of the history of science. Located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it includes a library, museum, archive, research center and conference center.
JoAnne Stubbe is an American chemist best known for her work on ribonucleotide reductases, for which she was awarded the National Medal of Science in 2009. In 2017, she retired as a Professor of Chemistry and Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The Charles Goodyear Medal is the highest honor conferred by the American Chemical Society, Rubber Division. Established in 1941, the award is named after Charles Goodyear, the discoverer of vulcanization, and consists of a gold medal, a framed certificate and prize money. The medal honors individuals for "outstanding invention, innovation, or development which has resulted in a significant change or contribution to the nature of the rubber industry". Awardees give a lecture at an ACS Rubber Division meeting, and publish a review of their work in the society's scientific journal Rubber Chemistry and Technology.
Karen L. Wooley is an American polymer chemist. She is a Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M University whose research focuses on developing novel polymers and nanostructured materials.
Henry Aaron Hill was an American chemist who became the first African American president of the American Chemical Society (ACS). As a scientist, he specialized in the chemistry of fluorocarbons.
This is a list of women chemists. It should include those who have been important to the development or practice of chemistry. Their research or application has made significant contributions in the area of basic or applied chemistry.
Herman Pines was a Russian Empire-born American chemist. Born in Łódź—then part of the Russian Empire—he left his hometown as a young man as Jewish quotas and other anti-Jewish practices prevented Jewish students from attending university. After earning a degree in chemical engineering at the École Supérieure de Chimie Industrielle de Lyon in France, he worked at Universal Oil Products from 1930 to 1952. Pines also worked at Northwestern University beginning in 1941, and served from 1953–1970 as the Ipatieff Research Professor of Chemistry and director of the Ipatieff High Pressure and Catalytic Laboratory.
Sylvia Marie Stoesser, was an American chemist. She was the first woman to be employed as a chemist at Dow Chemical Company. During her time at Dow, she made a number of major contributions, holding more than two dozen patents as a result of her research.
