The development of polymer chemistry in America - The early days

Abstract

Polymer chemistry in America started first in industrial laboratories where plastics were prepared from natural products such as hoof and horn. At that stage it was not a truly scientific field of work but pure technology in converting the natural products into materials like combs, especially decorative combs for ladies' hair. Chemistry may have been in volved in the transformations that were effective, hut certainly no reactions could be written to describe the changes.Marvel at Illinois Wesleyan with his first organic chemistry experiment as a Junior.

Serendipity: Towards a taxonomy and a theory

“…2 I developed a typology based on these two dimensions, yielding four methodological ideal types (McKinney, 1966;Bailey, 1994;Doty and Glick, 1994). The next section will describe Walpolian, Mertonian, Bushian and Stephanian serendipity types and will highlight some of the examples reviewed as illustrative of each type.…”

“…Nylon was discovered at Du Pont whilst attempting to develop artificial silk, but seemed initially to lack useful properties. Whilst playing around with the material however, specifically running down the hall whilst stretching it out, useful properties were found (Marvel, 1981).…”

“…Hill and his colleagues wanted to see how far they could stretch one of these samples, and ran down the hall. In doing so, they realised they were orienting the polymer molecules and increasing the strength of the product into something more useful (Marvel, 1981).…”

The quest for sustainable polyesters – insights into the future

“…6,7 Although this renewed interest in polymers from renewable resources has gained wings recently, this whole idea is not new. Indeed, the advent of bio-based polymeric materials is entangled with the birth of macromolecular science and technology in the 19th century with the synthesis of some very well-known materials such as celluloid, 8 vulcanised natural rubber 1,9 or even nylon-6,6. 1,9 However, the relative importance of macromolecular materials based on renewable resources suffered thereaer a gradual setback essentially due to the petrochemical revolution of the last century.…”

“…Indeed, the advent of bio-based polymeric materials is entangled with the birth of macromolecular science and technology in the 19th century with the synthesis of some very well-known materials such as celluloid, 8 vulcanised natural rubber 1,9 or even nylon-6,6. 1,9 However, the relative importance of macromolecular materials based on renewable resources suffered thereaer a gradual setback essentially due to the petrochemical revolution of the last century. In fact, polymers prepared from fossil resources, with huge quantities of polyethylene (HDPE, LDPE), polypropylene (PP), poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC), poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET), and polystyrene (PS), together with smaller quantities of other more sophisticated materials as poly(tetra-uoroethylene) (PTFE), aramides, just to cite some of the more common, are present in all domains of everyday life.…”