In a year that has already battered manufacturing supply chains, yet another shortage is complicating manufacturers’ and consumers’ lives: plastics, and the food packaging, automotive components, clothing, medical and lab equipment and countless other items that rely on them. But a new chemical catalyst developed at the University of Michigan could enable the production of more of the feedstock for the world’s second-most widely used plastic. The feedstock, propylene, is used to make the plastic polypropylene—8 million tons of it each year. The new catalyst, which can make propylene from natural gas, is at least 10 times more efficient than current commercial catalysts. And it lasts 10 times longer before needing regeneration. It is made of platinum and tin nanoparticles that are supported by a framework of silica.