Who invented bakelite products

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Rare Caravan. Photo by K. Wikimedia Commons. Collection of Green Necklaces. Australian Duperite Green Lamp. Art Deco from Decolish. The most plentiful natural polymer in the world is cellulose, the major natural structural material of trees and other plants. The proteins that make up our bodies are polymers, including DNA deoxyribonucleic acid , the material that carries the genetic codes for all living creatures.

Chemists did not fully understand or identify polymers until around But as early as , the British chemist Thomas Graham had noted that when he dissolved organic compounds in solutions, some of them—cellulose, for instance—would not pass through even the finest filter paper without leaving sticky residues.

Nor could these compounds be purified into a crystalline form. Graham thought such substances represented an entirely different organization of matter. He called them "colloids," after "kolla," the Greek word for glue, another material that could not penetrate fine filters.

Many 19th century manufacturers modified colloids and natural polymers to form new materials. In , the American inventor John Wesley Hyatt used chemically modified cellulose to produce an astonishing new product called Celluloid, a plastic that was used for everything from hair combs to silent-movie film.

By , Count Hilaire de Chardonnet was marketing the first synthetic textile, Chardonnet silk, made by spinning strands of cellulose nitrate into artificial fiber. These and other early plastics were made from existing materials. The next step—the creation of completely synthetic plastic—was still to come.

During the Victorian era, it was fashionable for wealthy gentlemen to own a billiard table and a set of billiard balls crafted of the finest and most perfect ivory. But 19th century hunters had virtually decimated the elephant herds of Africa and India, the source of ivory. They never received the money. But they did change history — by inventing celluloid, one of the world's first plastics. Celluloid not only resembled ivory, it had astonishing properties: at normal temperatures, it was a permanent, hard solid; when heated, it became soft and could be molded or rolled into sheets.

It soon became the material of choice for billiard balls and dozens of other products. The Hyatts made celluloid by applying heat and pressure to a mix of cellulose nitrate and camphor; it was thus a plastic made by modifying natural materials. More than 40 years were to pass before the invention of the first wholly synthetic plastic.

By , the invention of Velox photographic paper had already made Leo Baekeland a wealthy man. At his Snug Rock estate in Yonkers, New York, he maintained a home laboratory where he and his assistant, Nathaniel Thurlow, involved themselves in a variety of projects. Like other scientists of their day, Baekeland and Thurlow understood the potential of phenol-formaldehyde resins. The chemical literature included reports written decades earlier by the German chemist Adolf von Baeyer and by his student, Werner Kleeberg.

Von Baeyer had reported that when he mixed phenol, a common disinfectant, with formaldehyde, it formed a hard, insoluble material that ruined his laboratory equipment, because once formed, it could not be removed. Kleeburg reported a similar experience, describing the substance he produced as a hard amorphous mass, infusible and insoluble and thus of little use. In , German chemist Adolf Luft patented a resin made by modifying Kleeburg's composition in the hope that it could compete commercially with celluloid.

At least seven other scientists tried phenol and formaldehyde combinations in their attempt to create a commercially viable plastic molding compound. But no one was able to create a useful product. Hoping to capitalize on shortages of naturally occurring shellac—used to insulate electrical cables in the early years of the 20th century—Baekeland and Thurlow, as well as several other investigators, were experimenting with soluble resins.

Shellac was made from a resin secreted by the East Asian lac bug; it was harvested by the labor-intensive process of scraping the hardened deposits from the trees these insects inhabited. Eventually, they developed a phenol-formaldehyde shellac called Novolak, but it was not a commercial success.

By the early summer of , Baekeland changed his focus from trying to create a wood coating to trying to strengthen wood by actually impregnating it with a synthetic resin. On June 18, , Baekeland began a new laboratory notebook now in the Archives Center of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History documenting the results of tests in which he applied a phenol and formaldehyde mixture to various pieces of wood.

It was named for its inventor, Leo Hendrik Baekeland — , who discovered the durable plastic in After completing his doctorate at the University of Ghent in his native Belgium, Baekeland taught for several years. In , when he was 26, he traveled to New York on a fellowship to continue his study of chemistry; this same fellowship also allowed him to visit universities in England, Scotland, and Germany.

After the fellowship Professor Charles F. Chandler of Columbia University persuaded Baekeland to stay in the United States and recommended him for a position at a New York photographic supply house. This experience led him a few years later, when he was working as an independent consultant, to invent Velox, an improved photographic paper that could be developed in gaslight rather than sunlight.

Baekeland sold the rights to Velox to George Eastman and Kodak for one million dollars in He then started his own laboratory in Yonkers, New York, where he invented Bakelite in Made by combining phenol, a common disinfectant, with formaldehyde, Bakelite was originally conceived of as a synthetic substitute for the shellac used in electronic insulation.

However, the strength and moldability of the substance, combined with the low cost of producing the material, made it ideal for manufacturing. In , Bakelite was introduced to the general public at a chemical conference.

Interest in the plastic was immediate. Bakelite was used to manufacture everything from telephone handsets and costume jewelry to bases and sockets for lights bulbs to automobile engine parts and washing machine components. Fittingly, when Baekeland founded the Bakelite Corp, the company adopted a logo that incorporated the sign for infinity and a tag line that read "The Material of a Thousand Uses.

Over time, Baekeland obtained about patents relating to his creation. By , his company occupied a acre plant in New Jersey. The material fell out of favor, however, because of adaptive issues. Bakelite was fairly brittle in its pure form. To make it more malleable and durable, it was strengthened with additives.