In 1954 isotactic polypropylene was invented by Professor Giulio Natta's group at the Montedison laboratories in Italy. Natta discovered that propylene can be polymerized using catalysts obtained by modifying those discovered by Ziegler for polyethylene (mentioned above), to produce a thermoplastic of high crystallinity and stereoregularity.
The thermoplastic resin thus obtained has become one of the fastest growing polymers in recent decades.
Natta's studies proved that the aforementioned catalysts are capable of producing polypropylene with three possible structures, as can be seen:
a) Isotactic, with a single configuration (dextro or levo) along the chain.
b) Syndiotactic, with dextro and levo configurations alternating in an orderly fashion.
c) Attactic, with randomly ordered dextro and levo configurations.
