|
Alan Mc Diarmid 1927 -2007 "Three
chemists that disproved Chemistry." Since Plastic
was synthesized in 1862, they were insulators. Three scientists disproved this. Alan was one. Their
achievement in making a conducting polymer has revolutionised the electronic
industry. Your computers, mobile phones could not have been that smarter if
not for them.
Date of Birth: 14th April.
Fig.1 They shared the Noble
Prize for Chemistry in 2000.
Alan from New Zealand, Hideki Shirakawa, from Japan and and
Alan Heeger from US.
This is the story of Alan
Mc Diarmid, the New Zealand born chemist.
1892
Archibald Campbell Mac Diarmid,
a marine
engineer and his wife, Ruby Noel Willis
Graham came from New Plymouth to Masterton. Once Archie’s family was
holidaying at Rutherford’s farm at Pungarehu on the Taranaki coast.
Archie has recalled being impressed that 21-year-old Ernest Rutherford had
made 28 gallons of rhubarb wine. He would have never dreamt that this
youngster and one of his, yet to be born, sons would ever become Noble
Laureates.
1923
Mr.Archibald brought his family to Masterton from NewPlymouth and
started working as the chief engineer at Waingawa freezing works.
1927
Alan was born as the fifth child of the family. At the time, Archie
was un-employed. They rented out a house in Lower Hutt as the two elder
children started working in the capitol. He found a casual job at a filling
station to supplement the pension, yet they were struggling in poverty. It
was the time of great depression.
1932 Age 5 Yrs.
Alan attended Primary school in bare feet. His soles were badly
affected. It was the custom at the time to dip their feet in cow dung and
walk in order to avoid frost bite. In spite of the difficult times, his
parents kept the family united. Even if they were short of food, they invited
less fortunate people to meals.
“On such occasions, my older brothers and sister would frequently
remind me and my younger sister at meals not to ask for more food by saying
to us out loud at the table, ‘FHB,’ which meant, ‘Family Hold Back,’ which
meant ‘Don't eat too much!”
1937 Age 10Yrs.
His interest for chemistry has been kindled at this age, by one of
his father’s chemistry books. Once when he cycled to the public library, he
found a brand new blue book, ‘ The Boy Chemist’
which became his bible.
Here’s how he describes his early life in his autobiography. “I
attended a two-room school in Keri-Keri, where most of my school chums
were Maori boys and girls from whom I learned so much. …I had a pre-school
job, delivering milk on my bicycle for Mr. Bradley, who had a few cows in a
nearby paddock. My mother was superb - she would get up with me while it was
still dark to make me hot tea to send me on my way”.
Fig. 2. Alan on his bicycle. 1939 Fig. 3. Alan at the age of 12 yrs.
1942
Age 15 Yrs.
He was admitted to ‘Hutt Valley High School’. As he could no longer do the early
morning milk runs, he started delivering the newspaper, “Evening Post” after
school. His farther used to say, “An ‘A’
grade in a class is not a sign of success. Success is knowing that you have
done your best and have exploited your God-given or gene-given abilities to
the maximum extent”.
1943 Age 16 Yrs.
Alan passed the University of
New Zealand's University, now Victoria University, Entrance Exam and its
Medical Preliminary Exam.
1944 Age 17Yrs.
“Since the age of 17 I have supported myself financially, assisted
later only by scholarships and fellowships for which I am most grateful.”
He obtained a job as a ‘lab
boy’ in the chemistry Department at Victoria University College. There he
continued his studies in chemistry and mathematics as a part time student. To
help make ends meet he worked as the janitor at Weir House, the university
hostel for men. He says, “that period
was one of the most enjoyable and maturing times of my life. I made many good
friends amongst the other ninety residents and still keeps in close contact
with some”
1947 Age 20Yrs.
After completing his B.Sc, he got a position as a demonstrator.
1949 22Yrs.
He got an article published in
the prestigious science magazine, ‘Nature’.
1950 23 Yrs.
On one occasion Alan was asked
to prepare some S4N4-, which he did. The beauty of
bright orange crystals was to have a profound effect on his future. He later
explained his early inspiration for the research: “It really stems from the fact that I like colour. I like pretty
things.”
1951 Age 24Yrs.
He earned the MSc gaining first class honours, and won a full bright
scholarship for a PhD to the
University of Wisconsin.
He studied complex metal cyanides under Prof. Norris Hall. He
became the president of the International Club, the largest student union there.
He met his future bride at a club dance.
1952 Age 25Yrs.
He obtained the M.S. degree from the University of Wisconsin.
1953 Age 26Yrs.
On completion of his PhD he received a 'shell graduate
scholarship' to study at Sidney Sussex
College ,Cambridge in England.
1954 Age 27Yrs.
At the Sussex College chapel
Alan married Marian Mathieu, whom
he had first met at the University of Wisconsin.
1955 Age 28Yrs.
Alan achieved a PhD over again.
After a short period of teaching at St Andrews in Scotland he joined the
faculty of the University of Pennsylvania
My study in Philadelphia has a line, which reads, ‘I am a very lucky
person and the harder I worked the luckier I seem to be"!
1975 Age 48 Yrs.
Alan was asked by Alan Heegar,
a physicist at the University of Pennsylvania, to join him in making the
sulfur nitride conducting polymer (SN)x. This was because Heegar
knew that Alan had made the precursor S4N4 during his
MSc work in New Zealand.
“I had the good fortune to
meet my future friend and colleague, Professor Alan J. Heeger, Professor of
Physics at the University of Pennsylvania. He informed me that Professor
Mort Labes, at Temple University had published a paper on
a highly conducting material. He gave me the particulars; I told him that I
had made the precursor to that during my M.Sc. thesis work in New Zealand. He
asked me if I could make a sample. We were ultimately successful, and
co-published many papers together, on this conducting polymer"
"When I was a Visiting Kyoto University in Japan, I
met Professor Hideki Shirakawa. After a lecture at the
Tokyo Institute of Technology we met over a cup of green tea. When I was
showing a sample of golden crystals we had made, he showed me a sample of his
silvery crystals.”
"Dr. Shirakawa had been polymerizing ordinary acetylene welding
gas using a Ziegler-Natta catalyst and had been obtaining a rather
uninteresting black-brown powder. He requested one of his foreign students to
use a milimolar solution of the catalyst in the experiment. Due to a
misunderstanding of the Japanese language he had used a molar solution
instead. When Shirakawa went to the laboratory, instead of the black powder
there were lumps of silvery-pinkish jelly floating around. This then started
Shirakawa investigating this silvery form of polyacetylene."
Mr. Mac Diarmid invited Shirakawa to his University and they jointly
conducted experiments to make the silvery poly acetylene purer so that it may
conduct better. However, they found that the purer they made the substance;
the lower was its conductivity! Adding bromine to the golden material,
increased its conductivity tenfold, perhaps the impurity in the polyacetylene
was acting as a dopant and was actually increasing the conductivity of
the polyacetylene, rather than decreasing it. '
“We therefore decided to add some bromine to the silvery films and
immediately, within a few minutes at room temperature, the conductivity
increased many millions of times. We then collaborated with my colleague,
Professor Alan Heeger, who was well-versed in the physics of conducting
materials. The rest is history! “
1977
Age 50Yrs.
He published his results.
1990 Age 63Yrs.
Demise of Alan’s wife Marian.
They were married for 36 Yrs. And had four children: three girls and a boy.
1991 Age 64Yrs.
Miss. Gayl Gentile became his
partner.
A Plastic Battery.
One of Alan’s students placed two strips of polyacetylene in a
solution containing the doping ions and passed an electric current from strip
to strip. The positive ions migrated to one strip and the negative ions to
the other. But when the current source was removed, the charge remained
stored in the polyacetylene polymer. This stored charge could then be
discharged if an electrical load was connected between the two strips; just
as in a normal battery In a car battery or in any other accumulator the metal
plates undergo chemical changes. In a plastic battery it is not so; only the
stored ions of the solution move. So these batteries should have a
longer life time.
2000 Age 72 Yrs.
He shared the Chemistry Nobel prize with
Hideki Shirakawa and Alan J. Heeger.
“I
am a very lucky person and the harder I work the luckier I seem to be.”
Fig. 4. Alan his Nobel Prize from His Majesty the
King .
The invention of electrical conducting plastics and
plastic batteries can be considered as the greatest achievement in the use of
electrical energy since Faraday discovered the Electro Magnetic Generator.
|
