History of Polymers

 

     

      The history of polymer goes several hundred years ago. The natural rubber is a good example for that. It was found that the ancient Mayan civilization had used natural rubber. Other natural polymers such as amber, tortoiseshell and horn etc, also were used in ancient civilizations.  In 1844 Charles Goodyear was discovered the vulcanizing natural rubber with sulfur and heat.

     In 1862, a Briton Alexander Parkes was exhibited the first plastic in the world which is early called Parkesine and then Xylonite. It was used in applications like ornaments, handles, boxes cuffs and collars etc.  Hyatt brothers from America were developed Celluloid in 1870 using nitrate and cellulose mixture. That was used for dental plates for artificial teeth. 

        Polymers can be divided as natural and synthetic. In 1907 Leo Baekeland invented the first synthetic polymer, a thermosetting phenol-formaldehyde resin called Bakelite. It was used in different applications than other types. Hermann Staudinger a German chemist was published a new polymer theory in 1922 as polymers are made from chains of thousands of molecules linked together. PVC was invented in 1914, but its mass productions were started in 1927. Some other popular polymer types were discovered as follows, Polystyrene in 1930, Nylon in 1938, polyethylene in 1941, Kevlar in 1971 etc.  Like this polymers are developed up to now.

    Now there are different polymer types, different processing techniques and different applications also.