The Plastic History

Various bakelite's product. (Picture
from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/)

We are certainly familiar with plastic. Its use is very much in our daily lives, ranging from household appliances, office equipment, to sports equipment. Who was the inventor of the plastic?

Initially there's soft plastic called celluloid. This type of plastic invented by John Wesley Hyatt. The material is a mixture of cellulose nitrate and camphor dissolved in alcohol, then produce plastic are called celluloid. Celluloid is highly flammable, because it's less resistant to heat, and then celluloid is replaced by another plastic type that often we are seeing today and it called bakelite.

Leo Hendrik Baekeland (1863-1944).
(Picture from: http://www.kaskus.co.id/)

This heat-resistant plastic that was first discovered by Leo Hendrik Baekeland, an American-Belgian chemist. Baekeland was born in Ghent, Belgium, on November 14, 1863. Bakelite, which its name is taken from the name of Baekeland's, actually it wasn't his first finding because earlier he had found the photo paper called Velox.

Baekeland an intelligent student. He likes researching, fiddling, and try everything. During school he has always been a champion so that at age 16 he had graduated from the high school. Because of his intelligence anyway, he got a scholarship to pursue graduate studies at the University of Ghent. For three years he studied there and at the age of 19 he got his bachelor degree. In 1884 or at the age of 21, he had received his doctorate with the maxima cum laude predicate. Later he taught at the university until 1889.

Baekeland enjoys traveling and photographing. He frequently travels to foreign countries such as France and Britain. In 1889, he was awarded a scholarship to study in the United States for three years. Actual scholarship for three years instead he decided to settle in the United States until he was changing citizenship.

Because his hobby is like taking pictures, then he got a job in photography company. At that time, the film negatives to print images on the paper must use sunlight. Baekeland thought it wasn't practical. Especially if you have to print at night or when the weather is rainy and there's no sunlight. In a short time he managed to create photo paper called Velox. With this paper, without any sunlight,  film can be processed and as the sun substitute is to use a lamp. To support the discovery, in 1893 he founded a paper photo company is named Nepera Chemical Company. However, the company did not last long. Six years later he sold the company for one million dollars to Eastman. 

In 1905, Baekeland began conducting research. Two years later he was renovating a building which had been used as a warehouse into a laboratory that is located in Yonkers, New York. Construction costs using some of the money from the sale of his chemical company. In this laboratory he began researching bakelit forming materials.

Baekeland reacting two types of chemicals namely formaldehyde (H2CO) which is a kind of preservatives and phenol (C6H5OH) is a type of germicide. He was conduct the heating process with carefully, control the temperature and pressure. As a result, a new material is formed that can be bent, twisted, and made a variety of forms. He named it, Bakelite. Bakelite is a copolymer, a polymer that is the reaction of monomers more than one type. Polymers are compounds with large molecular mass formed from the combination simple molecules (monomers).

1910 Baekeland founded the plastics factory and act as the company's CEO until 1939. Since then, Bakelite or heat-resistant plastic was introduced to the general public. Initially the plastic used to make radio box, buttons, billiard balls, and a few other items. But, unlike today, where almost everything we encounter is made of plastic. Baekeland died on February 23, 1944 at the age of 81 years in Beacon, New York, USA. *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | SEPTI | PIKIRAN RAKYAT 01082013]

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