The New York Times had a nice piece yesterday on the CO2/epoxide copolymers that Coates has been working on a Cornell. Not a whole lot of technical discussion, although the author makes the point that CO2 is pretty far down in the thermodynamic well making it difficult to get much of any reaction out of it. I was glad to see that this article didn't make any of the typical rosy claims on how this technology will be commercialized by 2008, that it will save mankind and mother earth and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
The kicker here is that this is 6-year old news. It was first published in August, 2001 in JACS. The last I knew, Cornell was in the state of New York. A Times reporter should have been able to walk to Cornell and back during the summer of 2002 (since the winters Upstate are way too severe for travel on foot) and still filed this report 5 years ago. So does this mean that polymers have fallen to the realm of a "slow news day" filler?
Editor: "Jimmy, think fast! There's no news on Paris, Britney or Lindsey. We need something to fill the paper. We can't have blank spots on the pages. What have you got?"
Jimmy: "Well, gee, there is this story that's I wrote 6 years ago about making plastics from greenhouse gases. I was going to delete...
Editor: "Don't you dare. It's perfect. Give it too me and then get down to the corner of 6th. I hear that Alex Baldwin is there yelling into his cellphone..."
Everything flows, but only the macromolecules are worth the time.
1 comment:
Didn't that show up in C&EN not too long ago? Maybe I should read the paper. Hmmm.
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