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HISTORY OF POLYSTYRENE:
Bellis, Mary "Cracker Jack" Inventors at About. Retrieved January 1,
2001 from the World Wide Web: http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blcrackerjacks.htm
Polystyrene is a strong plastic created from erethylene and benzine
that can be injected, extruded or blow molded, making it a very
useful and versatile manufacturing material. Most of us recognize
styrofoam a form of foam polystyrene packaging. Polystyrene is
also used as a building material, with electrical appliances (light
switches and plates), and in other household items.
Polystyrene has a long history of evolution behind it. In 1839,
a German apothecary called Simon discovered polystyrene. Simon
isolated a substance from natural resin, however, he did not know
what he had discovered. It took another German, organic chemist,
Hermann Staudinger, to realize that Simon's discovery, comprised
of long chains of styrene molecules, was a plastic polymer.
In 1922, Staudinger published his theories on polymers, stating
that natural rubbers were made up of long repetitive chains of
monomers that gave rubber its elasticity. He went on to write that
the materials manufactured by the thermal processing of styrene
were similar to rubber. They were the high polymers including polystyrene.
In 1953, Hermann Staudinger won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for
his research.
In 1930, the scientists at BASF developed a way to commercially
manufacture polystyrene. Badische Anilin & Soda-Fabrik (BASF)
was founded in 1861. BASF has invented synthetic coal tar dyes,
ammonia, and nitrogenous fertilizers and developed polystyrene,
PVC, magnetic tape, and synthetic rubber. (note: A company called
I. G. Farben is often listed as the developer of polystyrene because
BASF was under trust to I. G. Farben in 1930.) In 1937, Dow Chemical
introduced polystyrene to the U.S. market.
Styrofoam
What we commonly call styrofoam, is actually the most recognizable
form of foam polystyrene packaging. Styrofoam® is a Dow Chemical
Co. trademarked form of polystyrene foam insulation, introduced
in the U.S. in 1954. Styrofoam® is a trademarked name, the
real name of the product is foamed polystyrene.
Ray McIntire invented Styrofoam for the Dow Chemical Co.. McIntire
said his invention of foamed polystyrene was accidental. His invention
came as he was trying to find a flexible electrical insulator around
the time of World War II. Polystyrene, which already had been invented,
was a good insulator but too brittle. McIntire tried to make a
new rubber-like polymer by combining styrene with isobutylene,
a volatile liquid, under pressure. The result was a foam polystyrene
with bubble, 30 times lighter than regular polystyrene. source
The Detroit News
Polystyrene.org
Related Information
Plastic
Leo Hendrik Baekeland patented a "Method of Making Insoluble
Products of Phenol and Formaldehyde" - plastic history, uses
for and making plastic, plastic in the fifties, online plastic
museum.
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