Robert H. Grubbs Quotes

My own ideas on the mechanism of catalytic phenomena were very different from those at one time commonly held, ideas which I no doubt owed to the influence of the illustrious teacher who had guided my first steps in chemistry nearly twenty years before - I refer, of course, to Berthelot.

All vinyl polymers may be regarded as built from monomeric units containing a tertiary carbon atom.

Catalysts are the conductors who choreograph the chemical dance that results in the formation of new structures.

Catalysts offer the promise of making chemical transformations far less polluting.

During the period 1901 to 1905, together with Senderens, I showed that nickel is very suitable for the direct hydrogenation of nitriles into amines and, no less important, of aldehydes and acetones into corresponding alcohols.

Through the continued accumulation of detailed and reliable knowledge about elementary reactions, we will be in a better position to understand, predict and control many time-dependent macroscopic chemical processes which are important in nature or to human society.

Most commercial products that contain organic molecules possess at least one carbon-carbon double bond, or if one is not present, it is likely that an olefin was used in its preparation. This being the case, the potential applications of olefin metathesis are endless.

A mighty flame followeth a tiny spark.

I was also interested in formulating the path of chemical reactions.

This success led my theoretical group to the chemical reactivity theory, extending more and more widely the range of compound and reactions that were discussed.

Proteins are the machinery of living tissue that builds the structures and carries out the chemical reactions necessary for life.

The development of a rational view of the nature of catalysis was thus absolutely dependent on the creation of the concept of the rate of chemical reaction.

Basically, any material you can squeeze, melt or generate into a powder, you can print.

The reactions of organic magnesium compounds are of two kinds - reactions of substitution and reactions of addition.

But the nature of my main work in chemistry can be better represented by more than 280 English publications, of which roughly 200 concern the theory of chemical reactions and related subjects.

Nowadays, however, we recognize that simultaneously with the typical case of a chemical reaction a typical case of catalytic effect had been studied which constitutes a limiting case.

My own interest in basic aspects of electron transfer between metal complexes became active only after I came to the University of Chicago in 1946.

Polymer chemistry provides an excellent means of studying metathesis catalysts: miniscule catalyst loadings have the capacity to generate large amounts of polymeric material, the structure of which can provide a historical record of catalyst activity.

Chemical synthesis is uniquely positioned at the heart of chemistry, the central science, and its impact on our lives and society is all pervasive.

I was trying to make something really hard, but then I thought I should make something really soft instead, that could be molded into different shapes. That was how I came up with the first plastic. I called it Bakelite.

We are seeing the cells of plants and animals more and more clearly as chemical factories, where the various products are manufactured in separate workshops.

No one believed me when I said it was possible to put fabric in resin.

Nature works with five polymers. Only five polymers. In the natural world, life builds from the bottom up, and it builds in resilience and multiple uses.

Our cells engage in protein production, and many of those proteins are enzymes responsible for the chemistry of life.

One of the most powerful transformational catalysts is knowledge, new information, or logic that defies old mental models and ways of thinking.