Who invented plastic

It was the first synthetic plastic - the first to be derived not from plants or animals, but from fossil fuels. Baekeland used phenol, an acid derived from coal tar. His work opened the floodgates to a torrent of now-familiar synthetic plastics - polystyrene in , polyester in , polyvinylchloride PVC and polythene in , nylon in These brand new materials were considered the very height of glamour.

But what really drove the industry's growth was the war effort, as plastics were used in everything from military vehicles to radar insulation. Petrochemicals companies built plants to turn crude oil into plastic by the lorryload, with the predictable result that, come the end of the War in , the industry faced a horrendous glut.

To keep production running, they were forced to think outside the box - or should that be inside the box? Andrea Sella offers the example of polyethylene terephthalate PET invented in , to show how versatile these cheap new materials could be. Today it is used to make fizzy drinks bottles, because it is strong enough to hold two atmospheres of pressure.

He then flourishes a soft winter glove, as well as a sheet of plastic for wrapping flowers. The only difference is the way in which it has been cast. And their properties can be changed just by tweaking their structure. He takes out a baby's drinking cup and lets it drop to the concrete floor. It bounces cheerfully back. When they came in, they were replacing things like pewter, which gets dented, and glass and ceramics, which have the terrible problem that they smash.

Synthetic plastics had the added advantage that they seemingly lasted forever. No organisms had evolved that were capable of digesting these complicated and alien materials. But that advantage is, of course, also a great disadvantage. Plastic might sit in a landfill, or litter a street, for thousands of years without decomposing. More worrying are reports that much of our plastic junk - including gazillions of tiny plastic micro-particles that might have broken off from plastic-based clothes in washing machines - have found their way into our oceans, where they collect in giant floating junkyards that go round and round in natural gyres in the ocean currents.

There is some evidence that bacteria may be evolving to feed on this junk , exploiting the energy embodied in the polymers' hydrocarbon bonds. But there are surely better solutions - such as plastics designed to decompose. Polylactic acid PLA for example, is derived from corn starch, the same stuff that corn flakes are largely composed of.

Starch, like cellulose, is a polysaccharide - a long chain of sugar molecules fused together. PLA can be used to make plastic bags, and fibres for clothing. Meanwhile, cellulose can be turned not only into celluloid, but also the food wrapper cellophane, or the fibre rayon. All of these polymers are compostable. However, in , Leo Hendrik Baekeland improved phenol-formaldehyde reaction techniques and invented the first fully synthetic resin to become commercially successful under the trade name Bakelite.

Here is a brief timeline of the evolution of plastics. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile.

Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Mary Bellis. Inventions Expert. 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. His invention, which he would christen Bakelite , combined two chemicals, formaldehyde and phenol, under heat and pressure.

Bakelite sparked a consumer boom in affordable yet highly desirable products. It had a dark brown, wood-like appearance but could be easily mass-produced, making it ideal for bringing new design trends such as Art Deco to the masses. These companies are still the major producers of raw material resins for the plastics industry today.

These alliances were driven by the desire to make use of waste material from processing crude oil and natural gas. The experiment failed. Instead, due to a leak of oxygen into the vessel, they found a white waxy substance in a reaction tube. This was found to be a polymer of ethylene. Its first application was insulating radar cabling during the Second World War, but consumer products soon followed, from the plastic shopping bag and Tupperware to artificial hip and knee joints.

Nylon stockings were an immediate worldwide sensation. From stockings to space suits, plastic has been used for an incredible variety of products in the modern world. The chemical properties that have made plastic an incredibly useful and durable material also make it difficult to dispose of, with some types taking thousands—even tens of thousands—of years to degrade in landfill. The degradation itself is an even bigger environmental issue, as the breaking down of plastics into microscopic particles pollutes our ocean, air and ecosystems.

The health implications of microplastic deposits in our bodies are not yet fully known. Many of our plastic problems began in the post-war period, when plastic began to replace the more expensive paper, glass and metal materials used in throwaway items, such as consumer packaging. Among the worst offenders, along with polyethylene shopping bags and polystyrene food containers, is the PET polyethylene terephthalate, a form of polyester drinks bottle.

The PET polymer was developed specifically to contain pressurised carbonated drinks, though its popularity as a container for still beverages, above all water, has boomed in the 21st century. The economics of mass-produced, cheap plastic products have led to a single-use culture, and today around billion PET bottles are sold every year. This figure is increasing, and the majority of these bottles end up in our oceans, degrading into microplastics.

Since the modern plastics industry relies on fossil fuels for its raw material, the production of plastic has an impact on climate change, contributing to global C02 production. For several decades, chemists have researched and developed 'green' plastics, which—like early semi-synthetic plastics—are derived from natural, biological material such as corn starch.

ICI, the British innovators of polyethylene, developed the first practical biodegradable plastic, Biopol, in , which was first used in a Wella shampoo bottle. These materials are becoming increasingly common in single-use packaging. But biodegradable plastics are only recycled if they end up in adequately compostable waste—domestic composting is not usually up to the job. One of the biggest barriers to plastic recycling is separation: when different polymers are mixed, the resulting material does not usually have useful properties.

Even two PET items, a drinks bottle and cookie cutter, for example, may have different melting temperatures that produce an unusable sludge when combined.