Du Nylon et des Bombes du Pont de Nemours, l'Etat américain et le nucléaire, 1930-1960

Abstract

En 1952, David Lilienthal, ancien directeur de la Tennessee Valley Authority et de l'Atomic Energy Commission, publiait Big Business, essai dans lequel il faisait l'apologie des grandes entreprises en affirmant qu'elles composaient désormais l'une des figures irrévocables de la modernité, caractérisée selon lui par des besoins de consommation toujours croissants qu'elles seules étaient capables de satisfaire. La société d'abondance était perçue par Lilienthal, à l'instar de l'historien David Potter, l'auteur de People of Plenty, comme à même de résoudre définitivement les problèmes sociaux et de faire entrer les États-Unis dans une ère nouvelle d'harmonie politique et sociale. Le Big Business redevenait le symbole de l'innovation et de l'efficacité : la menace sociale intérieure pouvait être désamorcée par la croissance économique et la menace soviétique par l'arsenal militaire.

A Few Examples of Cis Trans Isomerization in Complexes Involving the Oxamide Function

“…If scrambling was active, a mixture of NiL 3 Ni and VOL 3 VO complexes in a 1/1 ratio would be present. The magnetic data corresponding to such a mixture could agree with the data of the genuine NiL 3 VO complex, as we demonstrate that the magnetic interaction in the dinuclear VOL 3 VO complex is very weak and that de dinuclear NiL 3 Ni complex is diamagnetic. On the contrary, the EPR data become informative.…”

“…So we again show that a symmetrical ligand possessing two identical N2O2 coordination sites allows formation of heterodinuclear complexes, what is quite surprising and original. We have previously shown that the free L 3 H4 ligand reacts with vanadyl ions in basic medium to yield the VOL 3 VO complex [5]. We have also demonstrated that the thermal dependence of the magnetic susceptibility follows a Curie law, with C = 0.69 cm 3 mol -1 K, so that the magnetic interaction of the two vanadyl ions is absent or very weak.…”

“…This spectrographic result does confirm the existence of a genuine NiL 3 VO entity. In addition study of the homodinuclear VOL 3 VO complex indicates that this entity is not unique, with the axial VO groups in a trans or cis conformation. The EPR study shows that the fifteen-lines species becomes the main product after a prolongated heating, so that we can expect that the most symmetrical species is the main species and that it corresponds to the trans conformation of the VO groups.…”

“…In previous work we showed that symmetrical oxamide ligands such as N-N'-bis(4-methyl-5aza-3-hepten-2-on-7-yl) oxamide (L 1 H4, Scheme 1) or N-N'-bis[2,2-dimethyl-4-(2-hydroxyphenyl)-3aza-3-buten] oxamide (L 3 H4, Scheme 1) are able to coordinate transition metal ions to yield neutral homodinuclear complexes such as CuL 1 Cu, NiL 1 Ni [4] or CuL 3 Cu, NiL 3 Ni, VOL 3 VO [5], as demonstrated by the structural determination of the [CuL 3 Cu](H2O) complex [7]. More surprisingly, thanks to the cis-trans isomerization of the oxamide function, the L 1 H4 can react with copper ions to give an anionic species formulated (L 1 HCuNa).2H2O.…”

“…The reaction of diamines with dicarboxylic acids or their derivatives yields condensation polymers called polyamides, molecules made of repetitive units linked by amide functions [1]. These polyamides (nylon for example) have known a huge industrial development, going from textiles to a lot of different applications [2,3]. A few decades ago, as we were interested in the syntheses of transition metal complexes with a limited number of metal atoms, we decided to prepare ligands involving a limited number of amide functions [4].…”