Pioneers of plastics

Abstract

History can be a hard taskmaster. The story of the discovery and development of phenolic resins (popularly called Bakelite) is a case in point. Throughout the nineteenth century, numerous chemists such as Bayer, Kleeburg, and Luft had studied the reaction of phenol with aldehydes to produce (they hoped) a useful resinous substance. All had added to the knowledge of the subject but it was to be one man, Belgian born Leo Baekeland working in the USA, who finally solved the problems, made the product commercially successful, and on whom fell the accolade of 'father of the plastics industry'. How this happened and how close his English rival Sir James Swinburne came to snatching the palm of success form the substance of this review.