Platinum 2009 interim review: palladium: autocatalyst

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2010
• Weight: 60 KB
• Volume: 2010
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1351-4180
• DOI: 10.1016/s1351-4180(10)70050-7

✦ Synopsis

spectroscopy and the kinetics of the enzyme reactions. After Bert Allen had shown the world that dinitrogen complexes could indeed exist, the Unit produced a plethora of new complexes, and induced some based upon molybdenum or even iron to break their nitrogen-nitrogen triple bonds using simple reagents such as acids under mild conditions, generating ammonia and even amines. Some systems were potentially cyclable. The benefit to the science was enormous, but the economic return was zero.

Chatt and Postgate had retired by 1994, but the quality of the work showed no sign of decreasing. Nevertheless, it was decided that the expertise in genetics and microbiology might be better employed at The John Innes Centre at Norwich, and the laboratory was moved there from Brighton. Since then the ethos of the Laboratory, along with most of the nitrogen fixation workers and their associated researches, has vanished. This was probably inevitable. The period when the Unit was operating was a golden age for many researchers, though we certainly didn't realise it at the time.