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In 1862 the first man made plastic was made by Alexander Parkes for the Great International Exhibition in London. It was an organic material from cellulose and once heated could be molded, but retained its shape when cooled. The problem with it was the high cost of the raw materials needed for production. During the latter part of the 19 century people wanted to find a replacement material for the ivory used in billiard balls. Thousands of elephants were being killed for the ivory so billiard balls could be made. The solution finally came in 1869 with celluloid when a man by the name of John Wesley Hyatt had an accident in his lab with a bottle of collodion. He discovered that the material congealed into a tough flexible film. He then made billiard balls, but due to brittle nature of the substance balls would shatter once they hit each other. Camphor was added to the mixture and the substance could be molded into any shape. Celluloid went on to be used in the first flexible photographic film for still and motion pictures. The first completely made made plastics were called Bakelite and came out in 1907. Baekeland a New York chemist developed a liquid resin called Bakelite. He had made an apparatus he called a Bakelizer that enabled him to vary heat and pressure precisely so as to control the reaction of volatile chemicals. Using this item he developed a new liquid (Bakelite resin) that took the form of any thing he wanted. The material would not burn, boil, melt or dissolve and would never change once it was set. Bakelite could be added to almost any material and make it durable and effective. Many things were produced from the new material. Bakelite was a key ingredient in most of the weapons used in WW2.

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15y ago

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