'Green chemistry' work wins Nobel

[GreenPartyVoter]

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- France's Yves Chauvin and Americans Robert H. Grubbs and Richard R. Schrock won the 2005 Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday, for their work to reduce hazardous waste in forming new chemicals.

The trio won the award for their development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis -- which focuses on how chemical bonds are broken and made between carbon atoms, and which the Nobel Prize committee likened to a dance in which the couples change partners.

Metathesis has tremendous commercial potential in the pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and foodstuffs production industries. It is also used in the development of revolutionary polymers.

The process is used "daily in the chemical industry, mainly in the development of pharmaceuticals and advanced plastic materials."

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/10/05/nobel.chemistry.ap/index.html