Hundreds of millions of tons of plastic are produced each year thanks to a chemical reaction in three related molecules — ethane, ethyl and ethylene.
And yet, no scientists actually witnessed these reactions, until an Israeli PhD student studying something else unintentionally did exactly that.
“At first, I didn’t know what we had done,” admits PhD student Nadav Genossar-Dan from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. “It was only when I was looking at the data we collected that I realized we had managed to observe this important chemical.”
![Scientist stumbles on key element of plastic manufacture](https://static.israel21c.org/www/uploads/2023/07/pic-1-8-768x1024.jpg)
Genossar-Dan was leading an experiment with ethylidene, which is closely related to ethane and ethyl. He required a tool called a synchrotron, which produces vacuum ultraviolet light, to heat the molecule until it cracks apart briefly.
Since there are only a few synchrotrons around the world, he booked a one-week experiment in the Swiss Light Source synchrotron, and then worked around the clock with his group members and the hosting scientist to run the experiments.
![Scientist stumbles on key element of plastic manufacture](https://static.israel21c.org/www/uploads/2023/07/pic-2-7-768x576.jpg)
Upon going over the data from the week-long project, Genossar-Dan realized that they had detected the last unobserved intermediate in the ethane pyrolysis reaction for the first time.
“Going back through the literature since the 1930s, I couldn’t find a single researcher who had managed to observe it,” he noted.
![Scientist stumbles on key element of plastic manufacture](https://static.israel21c.org/www/uploads/2023/07/pic-3-3-768x576.jpg)
“Observing this intermediate [step] is the beginning of the path to making associated processes cleaner and more efficient, an important factor in industries such as plastics and natural gas,” said Genossar-Dan’s supervisor, senior lecturer Josh Baraban.
Together with their US and Swiss colleagues, the Israeli team published their findings in the journal Angewandte Chemie.