A Conversation with Graham Hutchings

G raham Hutchings of Cardiff University made a discovery in 1982 that came to define his career. He predicted that golddespite its reputation for being inertshould be an excellent catalyst for an industrial reaction that makes vinyl chloride monomer (VCM, or chloroethene), used to produce one of the world’s most ubiquitous plastics, polyvinyl chloride (PVC). More than three decades later, Hutchings is still working on gold catalystsand his pioneering research has finally helped gold to start replacing the conventional mercury-based catalyst in China’s VCM plants, stemming a major source of pollution. And just in time: the global Minamata Convention on Mercury requires that, starting in 2022, every VCM plant must be mercury-free. Mark Peplow spoke to Hutchings about his golden quest.