John E. Bercaw

Who is John E. Bercaw?

John E. Bercaw is an American chemist and Centennial Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology.

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Bercaw obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1971 under the direction of Hans-Herbert Brintzinger, followed by postdoctoral research with Jack Halpern at the University of Chicago.

He joined the faculty at the Caltech in 1972. Bercaw was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1991.

He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and he has received several national awards from the American Chemical Society.

His research interests are in synthetic, structural and mechanistic organotransition metal chemistry, including most recently catalysts for polymerization and trimerization of olefins and investigations of hydrocarbon hydroxylation; fundamental transformations and thermodynamics of organotransition metal chemistry; catalysts for hydrocarbon partial oxidation; catalysts for olefin trimerization and polymerization; homogeneous transformations of carbon monoxide and dihydrogen to fuels and chemicals.

Prof. Bercaw has greatly enhanced our understanding of the mechanisms of Ziegler-Natta olefin polymerizations. This metal-catalyzed polymerization process is operated on a vast scale and produces, worldwide, over 200 billion pounds of polyolefins per year. Bercaw’s work has led to a fundamental understanding of the detailed mechanisms of chain growth in ZN polymerizations and the factors which control syndio- and isotacticities and the degree of comonomer incorporation in copolymerizations; these variables are critical in determining the physical properties of the resultant polymers and copolymers.5