When was plastics discovered

But now humans could create new materials. This development helped not only people but also the environment. Advertisements praised celluloid as the savior of the elephant and the tortoise. Plastics could protect the natural world from the destructive forces of human need. The creation of new materials also helped free people from the social and economic constraints imposed by the scarcity of natural resources.

Inexpensive celluloid made material wealth more widespread and obtainable. And the plastics revolution was only getting started. In Leo Baekeland invented Bakelite, the first fully synthetic plastic, meaning it contained no molecules found in nature. Baekeland had been searching for a synthetic substitute for shellac, a natural electrical insulator, to meet the needs of the rapidly electrifying United States.

Bakelite was not only a good insulator; it was also durable, heat resistant, and, unlike celluloid, ideally suited for mechanical mass production. While Hyatt and Baekeland had been searching for materials with specific properties, the new research programs sought new plastics for their own sake and worried about finding uses for them later.

World War II necessitated a great expansion of the plastics industry in the United States, as industrial might proved as important to victory as military success. The need to preserve scarce natural resources made the production of synthetic alternatives a priority. Plastics provided those substitutes. Nylon, invented by Wallace Carothers in as a synthetic silk, was used during the war for parachutes, ropes, body armor, helmet liners, and more. Plexiglas provided an alternative to glass for aircraft windows.

It also retained its resilience when heated. We now know that the sulfur forms chemical bonds between adjacent rubber polymer strands. The bonds cross-link the polymer strands, allowing them to "snap back" when stretched. Charles Goodyear had discovered the process now known as vulcanization , which made rubber more durable. In , Charles Schonbein, a Swiss chemist, accidentally discovered another polymer when he spilled a nitric acid-sulfuric acid mixture on some cotton.

A chemical reaction occurred in which the hydroxyl groups of the cellulose fibers in the cotton were converted to nitrate groups catalyzed by the sulfur. The resultant polymer, nitrocellulose, could burst into a smokeless flame and was used by the military in place of gunpowder.

In , chemist John Hyatt reacted nitrocellulose with camphor to make celluloid , a plastic polymer that was used in photographic film, billiard balls, dental plates and Ping-Pong balls. In , a chemist named Leo Baekeland synthesized Bakelite , the first truly synthetic polymer, from a mixture of phenol and formaldehyde. The condensation reaction between these monomers allows the formaldehyde to bind the phenol rings into rigid three-dimensional polymers. So, Bakelite can be molded when hot and solidified into a hard plastic that can be used for handles, phones , auto parts, furniture and even jewelry.

Take a look at the event calendar to discover which events are best suited to your needs. Though the product was not a commercial success, Parkesine represented an important first step in the development of man-made plastic.

While Parkesine was created from organic compounds, specifically cellulose, Dr. This marks the start of the modern plastics industry. Hermann Staudinger proved the existence of what we know today as polymers in Plastics are just one subset of polymers, a broad term that can be used to describe any plastic as well as several other naturally-occurring organic compounds.

Even our own DNA are polymers. A staggering number of plastic and chemical innovations emerged in the period surrounding World War II. Plastic pollutes our landscapes, oceans, air and bodies. It has even entered the fossil record.

How did we get here? When did plastics become the ever-present material of modern society? And what might be the answers to the environmental impacts of plastics? Plastic is a loose term for describing materials that can be formed and moulded under heat and pressure.

Polymers are the chemical class of materials that make up all modern plastics. They are large molecules, consisting of a chain of repeating smaller molecules monomers.

The process of combining these monomers e. While we think of plastic as a 20th-century material, natural plastics such as horn, tortoiseshell, amber, rubber and shellac have been worked with since antiquity. Animal horns, malleable when heated, were used for many purposes and products, from medallions to cutlery. The comb-making industry was one of the biggest applications of horn in the 19th century. By the middle of the 19th century, in the wake of industrialised goods production, some animal-derived materials had become increasingly scarce.

Elephants were facing extinction if demand for their ivory, used in items from piano keys to billiard balls, continued. The same fate awaited some species of turtle, whose shell was harnessed for combs. Inventors soon attempted to tackle this environmental and economic problem, with many patents for new semi-synthetic materials based on natural substances such as cork, blood and milk. One of the earliest was cellulose nitrate—cotton fibres dissolved in nitric and sulphuric acids then mixed with vegetable oil.

Its inventor, the Birmingham-born artisan-cum-chemist Alexander Parkes , patented this new material in as Parkesine. Considered the first manufactured plastic, it was a cheap and colourful substitute for ivory or tortoiseshell. This new plastic made items like combs and billiard balls affordable to many more people, democratising consumer goods and culture. Ironically, as movie stars made short hair popular in the s, the celluloid comb industry was short-lived—until manufacturers switched to making a newly fashionable product: sunglasses.

Two spools of celluloid film made by Louis Le Prince in — The 20th century saw a revolution in plastic production: the advent of entirely synthetic plastics. Belgian chemist and clever marketeer Leo Baekeland pioneered the first fully synthetic plastic in He beat his Scottish rival, James Swinburne, to the patent office by one day.