What is the history of the Plastic?

Question

Details and links.

Answer 1

The first man-made plastic was created by Alexander Parkes who publicly demonstrated it at the 1862 Great International Exhibition in London. The material called Parkesine was an organic material derived from cellulose that once heated could be molded and retained its shape when cooled.

Answer 2

Once, hundreds of millions of years ago, it was a piece of animal or plant, probably, whereafter it became earth oil. The value of it increased. Then it was pumped up, hydrocracked, transformed and purified a few energy consuming steps, to become a bunch of monomer. Then somebody made a decision, whether it would become a piece of thermoplastic polymer, or a thermoset resin, or even better, an elastomer.

Let's assume that it was ment to be a thermoplast, then it went into a big polymerisation thank, be it with suspension polymerisation or emulsion polymerisation. The big problem here was that, if a lot of heat was created during the reaction, this had to be removed because otherwise the fresh polymer compounds might degrade or even worse. So called 'hot spots' can be dangerous. Than, when the reaction was complete, it was cooled down carefully. Being a little bit crystalline, the structure would have become much stronger.

Then finally, it probably came out as little pellets. They were ready for use, and together with some fillers and weakeners they entered an extruder, a machine with 1 or more archimedes screws that heat and pump the material. What happened than, depends on the application. It might have been injection-molded, to produce those little keys on your keyboard. So I guess that's the closest you can get to it's history!
Bye

Answer 3

Timeline - Precursors
1839 - Natural Rubber - method of processing invented by Charles Goodyear
1843 - Vulcanite - Thomas Hancock
1843 - Gutta-Percha - William Montgomerie
1856 - Shellac - Alfred Critchlow, Samuel Peck
1856 - Bois Durci - Francois Charles Lepag
Timeline - Beginning of the Plastic Era with Semi Synthetics
1839 - Polystyrene or PS discovered - Eduard Simon
1862 - Parkesine - Alexander Parkes
1863 - Cellulose Nitrate or Celluloid - John Wesley Hyatt
1872 - Polyvinyl Chloride or PVC - first created by Eugen Baumann
1894 - Viscose Rayon - Charles Frederick Cross, Edward John Bevan
Timeline - Thermosetting Plastics and Thermoplastics
1908 - Cellophane - Jacques E. Brandenberger
1909 - First true plastic Phenol-Formaldehyde tradenamed Bakelite - Leo Hendrik Baekeland
1926 - Vinyl or PVC - Walter Semon invented a plasticized PVC.
1927 - Cellulose Acetate
1933 - Polyvinylidene chloride or Saran also called PVDC - accidentally discovered by Ralph Wiley, a Dow Chemical lab worker.
1935 - Low-density polyethylene or LDPE - Reginald Gibson and Eric Fawcett
1936 - Acrylic or Polymethyl Methacrylate
1937 - Polyurethanes tradenamed Igamid for plastics materials and Perlon for fibers. - Otto Bayer and co-workers discovered and patented the chemistry of polyurethanes
1938 - Polystyrene made practical
1938 - Polytetrafluoroethylene or PTFE tradenamed Teflon - Roy Plunkett
1939 - Nylon and Neoprene considered a replacement for silk and a synthetic rubber respectively Wallace Hume Carothers
1941 - Polyethylene Terephthalate or Pet - Whinfield and Dickson
1942 - Low Density Polyethylene
1942 - Unsaturated Polyester also called PET patented by John Rex Whinfield and James Tennant Dickson
1951 - High-density polyethylene or HDPE tradenamed Marlex - Paul Hogan and Robert Banks
1951 - Polypropylene or PP - Paul Hogan and Robert Banks
1953 - Saran Wrap introduced by Dow Chemicals.
1954 - Styrofoam the trademarked form of polystyrene foam insulation, invented by Ray McIntire for Dow Chemicals
1964 - Polyimide
1970 - Thermoplastic Polyester this includes trademarked Dacron, Mylar, Melinex, Teijin, and Tetoron
1978 - Linear Low Density Polyethylene
1985 - Liquid Crystal Polymers


See link for more information

Answer 4

there are many kinds of plastics and even many definitions for what is considered "plastic"

this is a huge subject and many volumes of books are written on the history of "plastic"

here are some links that will scratch the surface:

http://www.americanplasticscouncil.org/s_apc/sec.asp?CID=290&DID=886

http://www.plastics.org/s_plastics/index.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic

Answer 5

Try plastics.com or Wikipedia, if you're talking about plastics. Capital P threw me - are you talking about a group or something?

Answer 6

I belive it was during the 2nd world war they learned to make polymers, and resions, they were looking for a quick easy way to patch the damaged planes..

Answer 7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic

Answer 8

go to wikipedia, but it didn't take off till ziegler and natta came up with their spiffy catalyst