Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: Who invented the first synthetic polymer?
The world's first fully synthetic plastic was bakelite, invented in New York in 1907 by Leo Baekeland who coined the term 'plastics'. Many chemists have contributed to the materials science of plastics, including Nobel laureate Hermann Staudinger who has been called "the father of polymer chemistry" and Herman Mark, known as "the father of polymer physics".
Graphene was discovered at the University of Manchester in 2004 under Prof Sir Andre Geim and Sir Konstantin Novoselov.
At the Calico Printers' Association in Manchester in 1941, John Rex Whinfield and James Tennant Dickson discovered polyethylene terephthalate, known as PET, a common polyester compound found in plastic bottles and food, and also known as Terylene or Dacron. Cheslene and Crepes of Macclesfield discovered crimplene (the fabric that is now referred to as polyester). ICI Dyestuffs at Hexagon House, in Blackley in north Manchester, discovered Procion dyes. At the Winnington Laboratory on 27 March 1933, Eric Fawcett and Reginald Gibson discovered polythene in an ICI laboratory in Northwich, when reacting benzaldehyde with ethene at a pressure of 2,000 atmospheres; the process was improved in 1935 by Sir Michael Perrin.
People have been using natural organic polymers for centuries in the form of waxes and shellac, which is classified as a thermoplastic polymer. A plant polymer named cellulose provided the tensile strength for natural fibers and ropes, and by the early 19th century natural rubber was in widespread use. Polymers are the raw materials (the resins) used to make what are commonly called plastics. Plastics are the final product, created after one or more polymers or additives have been added to a resin during processing, which is then shaped into a final form. Polymers that have been around, and that are in current widespread use, include carbon-based polyethylene, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride, polystyrene, nylons, polyesters, acrylics, polyurethane, and polycarbonates, and silicon-based silicones. Plastics are generally classified as "commodity", "specialty" and "engineering" plastics.
Polyvinyl ethers are a class of organic polymers derived from vinyl ethers. The most common polymers of this class are derived from methyl vinyl ether and ethyl vinyl ether, the polymer having the formula [CHCH(OCH)]. Commercial interest has also focused on polymers derived from ethyl, isobutyl, octadecyl substituents in place of methyl. Like other vinyl polymers, the polymers exhibit tacticity. Polymerization is typically initiated with Lewis acids such as boron trifluoride.
Natural biodegradable polymers are formed in nature during growth cycles of all organisms. When searching for natural fibers to replace synthetic materials in athletic shoes, the major natural biodegradable polymer that offers the most potential are polysaccharides. Starch is a polysaccharide that is useful because it readily degrades into harmless products when placed in contact with soil microorganisms.
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are discussed as possible starting materials for abiotic syntheses of materials required by the earliest forms of life.
The Dupont Viscoloid Company, Inc. is a former plastics manufacturer based in Leominster, Massachusetts. The company was founded by Alexander Paton, Ludwig Stross and Bernard W. Doyle in 1901 as the Sterling Comb Company. In 1912, the three men consolidated a number of smaller plastics manufactures under the name Viscoloid Company. The company pioneered the use of pyroxylin plastic in hair combs, toilet articles, and a number of different products. In 1914, the Viscoloid Company began marketing pyroxylin plastic toys. The toy industry quickly became the company’s most profitable, and the Viscoloid was soon the leading pyroxylin plastic toy manufacturer in America. By 1923, Bernard Doyle had taken over the company and “The Viscoloid” spanned 106 buildings and was the largest employer in Leominster. In 1925, the company was sold to the Dupont Company of Leominster and was renamed the Dupont Viscoloid Company, Inc. The company would continually be a giant in the plastics industry until closing in November 1977.
To the extent that cultural contributions comprise invention, innovation, and progress, Springfield has been, historically, one of the nation's most innovative cities. In 1819, inventor Thomas Blanchard invented the lathe in Springfield, which would catalyze manufacturing developments now known the world over as interchangeable parts and the assembly line. In 1825, Blanchard also built the first American car, a "horseless carriage," which was powered by steam. In 1844, inventor Charles Goodyear perfected and patented his process for making vulcanized rubber in Springfield - as of 2011, as it has been for many years previous, Goodyear's name is known the world over for rubber production. In 1868, inventor Margaret E. Knight invented a machine for folding and gluing flat-bottomed paper bags.
Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) was discovered by French physicist Henri Victor Regnault, and German physicist Eugen Baumann. Klatte designed the production process, although never successfully commercialised it. Klatte is sometimes incorrectly attributed to be the discoverer or inventor of PVC.
DNA, RNA and proteins are most common sequence-controlled polymers in living creatures. Inspired by them, polymerization methods, utilizing DNA or RNA as templates to control sequences of polymer, are developed. At first, taking DNA or RNA as templates, scientists developed a series of peptide nucleic acid (PNA)-based polymers, without using DNA polymerases. But this method is limited to polymerization scale and yield. After that, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is developed, which currently is still the most extensively used sequence-regulated method. By employing enzymes, the yields and scales are greatly increased, but the specificity of enzymes towards natural peptides limits this technique to a certain degree. Nowadays, more attention is paid to utilization of ribosomes to directly mimic the transcription and translation process. This technology called protein engineering is considered as the most promising biological polymerization method for synthesis of sequence-controlled polymers.
On July 31, 1790 inventor Samuel Hopkins of Pittsford, Vermont became the first person to be issued a patent in the United States. His patented invention was an improvement in the "making of Pot Ash by a new apparatus & process." These earliest patent law required that a working model of each invention be produced in miniature.
On July 31, 1790 inventor Samuel Hopkins of Pittsford, Vermont became the first person to be issued a patent in the United States. His patented invention was an improvement in the "making of Pot Ash by a new apparatus & process." The earliest patent law required that a working model of each invention be produced in miniature.
Swiss electrical engineer George de Mestral invented his first touch fastener when, in 1941, he went for a walk in the woods and wondered why Burdock seeds clung to his coat and dog. He discovered it could be turned into something useful. He patented it in 1955 and subsequently refined and developed its practical manufacture until its commercial introduction in the late 1950s.
The first rubber balloons were made by Professor Michael Faraday in 1824 for use in his experiments with hydrogen at the Royal Institution in London. "The caoutchouc is exceedingly elastic", he wrote in the Quarterly Journal of Science the same year. "Bags made of it...have been expanded by having air forced into them, until the caoutchouc was quite transparent, and when expanded by hydrogen they were so light as to form balloons with considerable ascending power..." Faraday made his balloons by cutting round two sheets of rubber laid together and pressing the edges together. The tacky rubber welded automatically, and the inside of the balloon was rubbed with flour to prevent the opposing surfaces joining together.
The term "biochemistry" itself is derived from a combination of biology and chemistry. In 1877, Felix Hoppe-Seyler used the term ("biochemie" in German) as a synonym for physiological chemistry in the foreword to the first issue of "Zeitschrift für Physiologische Chemie" (Journal of Physiological Chemistry) where he argued for the setting up of institutes dedicated to this field of study. The German chemist Carl Neuberg however is often cited to have coined the word in 1903, while some credited it to Franz Hofmeister.
It was once generally believed that life and its materials had some essential property or substance (often referred to as the "vital principle") distinct from any found in non-living matter, and it was thought that only living beings could produce the molecules of life. Then, in 1828, Friedrich Wöhler published a paper on the synthesis of urea, proving that organic compounds can be created artificially. Since then, biochemistry has advanced, especially since the mid-20th century, with the development of new techniques such as chromatography, X-ray diffraction, dual polarisation interferometry, NMR spectroscopy, radioisotopic labeling, electron microscopy, and molecular dynamics simulations. These techniques allowed for the discovery and detailed analysis of many molecules and metabolic pathways of the cell, such as glycolysis and the Krebs cycle (citric acid cycle), and led to an understanding of biochemistry on a molecular level. Philip Randle is well-known for his discovery in diabetes research is possibly the glucose-fatty acid cycle in 1963.He confirmed that fatty acids reduce oxidation of sugar by the muscle. High fat oxidation was responsible for the insulin resistance.
In 1912, the first patents for polyvinyl chloride (PVC) were founded in Britain and Germany. It was not until the early 1930s that PVC was able to be produced cheaply, limiting its marketable applications for the time. World War II helped make the substance popular, as manufacturers used it to make an assortment of items for soldiers. It was here that PVC’s water resistance was shown to be an important property, and tools made from PVC were used in many marine applications. After the war, PVC was not a popular choice of materials in the marine industry due to its density. In the 1970s, the need for a strong, moisture-resistant material led to plastic manufactures working with PVC to make it lighter. This led to the creation of PVC foamboard, by combining PVC with polyurea at the molecular level.
Latex rubber toy balloons were introduced by pioneer rubber manufacturer Thomas Hancock the following year in the form of a do-it-yourself kit consisting of a bottle of rubber solution and a condensing syringe. Vulcanized toy balloons, which unlike the earlier kind were unaffected by changes in temperature, were first manufactured by J.G. Ingram of London in 1847 and can be regarded as the prototype of modern toy balloons.
Alexander Fleming had first discovered penicillin by accident in 1928, but at that time believed it had little application. When Florey and his team recognised the potential of the discovery for combating bacterial infection, they faced the problem of how to manufacture penicillin in sufficient quantities to be of use. Heatley, although the junior member of the team, possessed a natural gift for ingenuity and invention. It was he who suggested transferring the active ingredient of penicillin back into water by changing its acidity, thus purifying the penicillin.
Generally, it has been found that scaffolds that closely resemble the natural environments of the tissue being engineered are the most successful. As a result, much research has gone into investigating natural polymers that can be tailored, through processing methodology, toward specific design criteria. Chitosan is currently one of the most widely used polymers as it is very similar to naturally occurring glycosaminoglycan (GAGs) and it is degradable by human enzymes.
The carbon microphone was independently developed around 1878 by David Edward Hughes in England and Emile Berliner and Thomas Edison in the US. Although Edison was awarded the first patent in mid-1877, Hughes had demonstrated his working device in front of many witnesses some years earlier, and most historians credit him with its invention.
In 1958, Beecham scientists in the UK discovered the penicillin nucleus, 6-APA. From that starting material, a large number of new semisynthetic penicillins could be designed, whose activity was directed against problem infections.
In the 1920s, DuPont continued its emphasis on materials science, hiring Wallace Carothers to work on polymers in 1928. Carothers invented neoprene, a synthetic rubber; the first polyester superpolymer; and, in 1935, nylon. The invention of Teflon followed a few years later. DuPont introduced phenothiazine as an insecticide in 1935.
Semon is best known for inventing vinyl, the world's second most used plastic. He found the formula for vinyl by mixing a few synthetic polymers, and the result was a substance that was elastic, but wasn't adhesive. Semon worked on methods of improving rubber, and eventually developed a synthetic substitute. On December 11, 1935, he created "Koroseal" from salt, coke and limestone, a polymer that could be made in any consistency. Semon made more than 5,000 other synthetic rubber compounds, achieving success with "Ameripol" (AMERican POLymer) in 1940 for the B.F. Goodrich company. In all, Semon held 116 patents, and was inducted into the Invention Hall of Fame in 1995 at age 97.
Since the invention of the first synthetic polymer product, bakelite, synthetic polymer products have frequently been invented.
He was known as a pioneer of polymer science. He co-organized the first Reaction Mechanisms Conference in 1946. He was also a founding co-editor of the "Journal of Polymer Science" in 1946.
He studied polymerization processes as part of the U.S. synthetic rubber program during World War II and invented and patented polyether polyurethane foam rubber. He also contributed to the detection of chemical weapons, the develop of chloroquine as a treatment for malaria, and treatments for cancer.