IAT 336 Lecture Notes - Thermosetting Polymer, Polyester Resin, John Wesley Hyatt
Document Summary
Plastics are among the most versatile and useful of all materials known to man. Plastics can be made to look like, and take the place of various materials like wood, glass, china (porcelain), cloth, rubber, jewels, varnish, etc. For this reason, plastics find wide use in industry and for craftwork. Although nature"s polymer-woods, wools, leathers are the older of the world"s materials, the main polymers of today have little that is natural about them. They are derived from the imagination of the chemist. Almost all are synthesized from oil (although they don"t have to be) They are composed of the simplest atoms: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, chlorine, and sometimes nitrogen and fluorine) The first plastic, cellulose nitrate (celluloid) was developed by john wesley hyatt, an american printer. This was the only plastic of commercial importance until casein plastics were introduced about. Leo baekeland, a belgian scientist developed the phenolic plastic bakelite in 1909.