HISTORY OF PLASTICS

Sir Robert Hooke, 1635--1703

Not popular. No portraits survive.
Disfigured by smallpox as a child; orphan; father committed
suicide when he was 13; difficult temperament, enemies (such
as Isaac Newton) prevented recognition as an English
Leonardo da Vinci.
Inventor of:
the iris diaphragm in cameras, the universal joint in vehicles,
the balance wheel in watches, etc.
First to use the word 'cell' in the context of biology
Author of the first book on microscopy

Surveyor of the City of London after the Great Fire.

Architect, astronomer; deputy to Sir Christopher Wren.
Known today for Hookes Law and the concept of extrusion.
PART ONE: Natural Plastics
(resins)
Flowers, foliage and fruit
of the Isonandra Gutta
Percha Tree

A resin is obtained by
evaporating and coagulating the milk
from the gutta percha tree trunk. It
can be shaped in boiling water.
http://www.bouncing-balls.com/serendipity/gutta.htm
In 1839 a German apothecary, Eduard Simon,
distilled an oil from the resin of the Sweetgum tree,
and named it "styrol". Over a few days it formed a
jelly, which he called styrol oxide. It was
actually poor quality polystyrene and not an oxide.

Its not recognised as the first fully man-made

plastic; usable polystyrene only came in 1933!
 Trunk of rubber tree,
Hevea brasiliensis,
with cup for collecting milk

The rubber is coagulated, dried and over-cooked

with sulphur to form ebonite for gramophone
records, bowls, castors, (smoking) pipes.
 PLASTICS FROM COWS!
Casein plastics
(1899) (The most beautiful of all plastics)
Inventors:
Krisch & Spitteler
(Germany)

Artificial horn

A protein is separated from milk by the enzyme rennin. It is

moulded to shape under heat and pressure, and hardened by soaking
in formalin (health hazard!). Casein products are machined from
sheet, rod, or tube. Now confined mostly to buttons in New Zealand
Alexander Parkes 1813 - 1890
Manager of the metal casting
department at Elkington,
Mason & Co. in Birmingham.

1846 Parkes patented a mixture

of natural rubber with gutta
percha. The worlds first
blended and toughened plastic?
1856: The worlds first semi-synthetic
plastic
Invented in Birmingham

Parkes took out over 80 patents and made the

worlds first artificial plastic, cellulose nitrate.
He called it Parkesine, [shown at the
International Exhibition in London in 1862].

Awarded a medal, made no profit.

 19th Century Celluloid Uses
Dental plates (1871); knife handles; toys; washable collars
and cuffs; billiard balls, buttons, brooches,
dolls, folding toothpicks, combs, paperweights, thimbles,
shoe-horns, table tennis balls, etc.
Celluloid strips were coated with a photosensitive gelatin emulsion
and used in early motion pictures (1880s) ---big fire problem!
Later replaced by cellulose acetate or polyester .

Pen

Celluloid Figurines
 PART TWO: MAN-MADE
PLASTICS
Phenol + Formaldehyde P-F resin + water
Dr Leo Baekeland
(Belgian) made P-F
resins; Founded
General Bakelite Co. in
1910 in USA
Bayer (Germany) and Luft (Austria) had already
made similar resins, but failed to commercialise them.
 Bakelite Companies.
James Swinburne formed Fireproof Celluloid
Syndicate Ltd in 1904 to investigate the P-F
insulating resins shown him by Luft of Austria. He
failed to make insulator mouldings, but made a
hard lacquer, more durable than shellac, and used
it for coating brass to prevent tarnishing - (brass
bedsteads were fashionable and made in
Birmingham).
In 1910 he formed the Damard Lacquer Co. in a
lean-to shed in Birmingham. Successful. Demand
rose. Patent struggles with Baekeland.
BAKELITE Ltd was formed in 1927 to
exploit Baekelands patents in the UK by
merging:
Damard Lacquer Co.,
Baekeland Inc.,
Mouldensite Ltd (a leading moulding
company) and
Redmanol Ltd (the UK arm of an American
sales company)
 PVC was discovered in 1912 by Fritz
Klatte, a German chemist.
Klatte reacted acetylene with hydrochloric
acid to produce vinyl chloride. Thinking
he'd failed, he put it on a shelf, where it
went solid (formed PVC). He
patented it in Germany. His company never
did anything with it.

Ten years later, the patent expired. 1926, Waldo Semon,

American chemist with B.F.Goodrich, discovered PVC,
without knowledge of Klatte's discovery. He showed it to his boss,
who patented it in America. They thought it would make good
shower curtains.
The waterproof material soon found more creative uses, and
Goodrich made a fortune. Klatte never saw a penny.
PVC wire and cable jacketing has much better
durability than natural rubber. Less re-wiring!
Its also used
for pipe, buildings,
shoes, etc, etc

Pay with plastic

PVC Extrusions ---continuous profiles
such as gutters, hose, sheet, curtain rails,
conveyer belts for mining, window frames.

PVC window
frames were
made on a
large-scale in
the early 1970s
in Germany
 Recorded music
1880s Shellac used for records by Emil Berliner. First
to use discs (rather than phonograph cylinders)
despite earlier work by Edison, Bell and Cros. Even
with cotton reinforcement it was brittle, but it could
reproduce fine detail. Other companies used ebonite.

78 rpm was standard by late 1920s.

1952 PVC (vinyl). Known as
unbreakable because shellac resin cracked so easily.
Others say Billy Joels 52nd St, made
Abbas song The Visitors was in Japan; or Beethovens 9th, others
the first commercial CD, in 1982. say Born in the USA
1982 is probably right.
Made of polycarbonate.
 Polythene (Polyethylene)
invented by Fawcett and Gibson (ICI)
1933, production 1 Sept 1939;
first use -- military radar (WW2)
6 different types later invented
Postwar: shopping bags,
wire insulation, packaging,
(failed) washing-up bowls

Later: stiffer type made, used for Fairy

Liquid bottles; swing-top bins; pipes
 Dyneema polyethylene
has extra long molecules
Fishing line

21st Century
a rmoured vehicles
 Rapid development
Unsaturated polyesters (fibre glass
boats) 1940s and 1950s

Epoxy resins (Araldite etc) 1939

Nylons; saturated polyester (polyester-

cotton shirts) 1930s; (first textiles, then
plastics)
 William H Carothers
Started as a junior accountant,
then chemistry student, then head of
college dept.,
Worked at DuPont

Invented Neoprene rubber,

Polyester textiles, (1930s)
(Dacron etc)
Invented nylon, Committed
suicide at age 41.
Nylon is used for gears, low voltage
switchgear (top left); fishing lines,
under-bonnet car parts, toothbrushes;
but was invented as a textile.

Semi-finished nylon products

Bottom left)
Polypropylene (invented 1954)
is versatile

Stackable chairs

Drinking water bottles (not huge ones)

Banknotes
Rope
Vehicle parts
Garden membranes for weed control
Polycarbonate (1953) is tough and
can be transparent
discovered by Daniel Fox at GE (Lexan) and by
Hermann Schnell at Bayer (Makrolon) (both in 1953)
Uses: riot shields, visors, greenhouses,
conservatories, lenses, CDs, DVDs,
headlamp glasses...
30% of all US spectacle lenses are made of
polycarbonate, because of lawsuits about
eye injuries from lenses breaking
.

Polycarbonate
for long riot
American football shields and jet fighter
helmet cockpit canopies
 Australian-designed
polycarbonate beer
glass

In 2009, the UK Home Office says that glass beer

mugs and bottles cost the NHS and police
100 million a year through 87,000 reported injuries
Basic injection moulding machine for making
thermoplastic articles (from combs to chairs) A
screw was first used instead of a ram in 1946.
Toyota Prius (August 2009) uses plastics from plants
e.g. seat cushion foam, cowl side trim, inner and outer scuff
plates. Special Prius A for Japan uses air conditioning outlet
made from sugar. Other raw materials: polylactic acid from
starch, polyester, kenaf fibre, and polyols from castor oil.
 NEXT :POLYCARBONATE
CAR WINDOWS!
Polycarbonate glazing is 50% lighter than glass
and has high impact resistance.
Suppliers claim a weight reduction of more than
20kg (50%) is possible when replacing all glass
windows (except the windshield) in a minivan.
Vehicle manufacturers can now try 3D-shaped
windows and new opening mechanisms.

Polycarbonate can now be made from carbon dioxide (and propylene oxide) instead of the hazardous use of phosgene
reacted with bisphenol A. The last-named chemical is under suspicion as a health hazard to foetuses and children
 Lithium ion batteries
A separator is a plastic film (often specially
modified polypropylene, or a polyimide)
preventing the electrodes from touching, but
letting lithium ions pass between them to allow
the charge and discharge of the battery.
A hybrid car has between 50 and 70
batteries.
plug-in hybrids--
80 to 200
fully electric cars
at least 150.
 SUPERBUS MADE IN AN OVEN

This 15 metre long, Dutch-made battery-powered

bus with gull-wing doors is made from a carbon
fibre reinforced plastic chassis, glass reinforced
polypropylene bodywork, and polycarbonate
windows.
 THE PACKAGING INDUSTRY
SAYS:
Food packaging prolongs food life,
saves more than 25% food
from the waste bin. Plastic bottles save
on fuel, dont break, and can be
recycled. Plastic packaging uses only
2% of all oil produced.

Collapsible
water bottle

Packaging is hightech (multi-layered, can incorporate anti-piracy

watermarks for designer label goods, exclude oxygen, retain
moisture, stop meat discoloration, control CO2 access)
This food packaging by Linpac won a
European prize in 2009 for products containing over
50% recycled plastics
 MEDICAL PLASTICS
Tubing; IV accessories; blood bags Papworth.

900 of these
Syringes; catheters worldwide

Implants
Temporary heart
Radiation shielding (instead of lead)
blood glucose meters; pumps; drug
packaging
Note: plastic components can incorporate
antimicrobial additives (biocides) to combat
infection
 Only a few reinforced plastics parts shown here

Main-wing box Rear fuselage

Engine cowlings

Cabin floor
Galleys and
Centre wing box
lavatories
Aileron (fibreglass)

50% reinforced plastic

(CFRP) so 20% less fuel Boeing 787 Dreamliner
(Based on Flight International drawing)
 Clever Stuff
Space suits; Moon rover vehicles
Electrically conducting plastics
Electronic paper
Smart materials change colour in response
to pressure, temperature, light, remember
their previous shape and go back to it;
blood clot warning devices for air travellers;
Heal any scratches by themselves*
(*An additive is used:--short polymer molecules
containing zinc or lanthanum ions; it melts and
repairs the scratch in 1 minute under UV light,
provided the sample is thin enough)
Recycling
bottles

Detergent, other cleaning fluids, shampoos,

pills, soft drinks --REMOVE LIDS FIRST
Recycling one plastic bottle can save enough energy
to light a 60W bulb for 6 hours
This boat was made from 16,000 recycled
PET bottles, to sail from San Francisco to Sydney.

Recycled polyethylene walkway in

Bracknell. The Domesday Book
copse is low-lying and prone to
flooding; so a wooden structure
would have quickly rotted
 Courtesy of Tech Wood

This building is made of 70% waste sawdust

and 30% resin (such as polyethylene)
A UK Environment Agency document,
Life Cycle Assessment of Supermarket Carrier
Bags, asserts that polythene bags have
less impact on the environment than many
supposedly green alternatives;
the so-called single use plastic bag is around 200
times less damaging than multi-use cotton bags.

Feb 2011
Some biodegradable bags generate methane
rapidly during landfill
The UK Environment Agency (EA) has temporarily withdrawn its report while a legal query is resolved.
The report shows that re-use of bags rather than the material of which
they are made per se is the critical factor in reducing environmental impact. A cotton bag would have to be used at least 131
times to ensure that it has a lower global warming potential than a conventional single use lightweight HDPE carrier
bag that is not reused. Paper and compostable bioplastic bags also show higher global warming potential than the
conventional plastic bag. US students have identified polyurethane-eating organisms from the Amazon area.
The oceans have big islands of plastic rubbish
delivered to a central point by converging ocean currents

According to the Germans, 80% of all

marine waste reaches
the sea from the land because of poor
waste management. Germany already
recovers 97% of its plastic waste.

The Pacific one was once said to be 14 times the size of

Holland, or twice that of Texas
Other oceanographers disagree; they say if you just measure the area of the plastic, rather than
the area affected by merging currents, it is a small fraction of the state of Texas, say 1% .
A 22 year study has found no increase in size over that time.
Whim Architecture has proposed making an island
the size of Hawaii from Pacific ocean plastic waste,
to create a floating home for 500,000 people,
powered by solar energy and wave motion.
Electrolux has launched a Vac from the sea
initiative to suck waste out of the ocean to use it to
make sustainable vacuum cleaners.
 THE END!

THANKS FOR STAYING AWAKE!