Plastic, literally speaking, is a moldable material, that is, plastic material. Nowadays, plastic is a proper term for a kind of materials that are cast, extruded, blown or injected into molds by resin at a certain temperature and pressure.
From 65438 to the 1960s, due to the shortage of ivory in the United States, there was a lack of raw materials for making billiards. The earliest artificial plastic celluloid was patented in 1869. Although celluloid is the earliest artificial plastic, it is an artificial plastic, not a synthetic plastic. The first synthetic plastic was made of phenolic resin by pressing with a heating mold. It was made by Backlander, an American Belgian chemist of 19 10 in the early 20th century.
Backlander used sawdust to heat and pressurize phenolic resin to make various products, which were named bakelite after his surname, and we called it bakelite. After the First World War, the radio, radio and other electrical appliances industries developed rapidly, increasing the demand for bakelite, which has been used ever since.
In the chemical industry, instruments that don't need acid to work were once made of special steel, which was very expensive. It is much cheaper to replace them with alkali-resistant bakelite. But bakelite is not alkali-tolerant. It is a good material for making buttons and chess pieces. Some parts of tractors and cars are also made of it.
19 18, Austrian chemist John made urea-formaldehyde resin. The plastic made of it is colorless, light-resistant, high in hardness, high in strength, non-flammable and light-permeable, also called electric jade. In the 1920s, it was used as a glass substitute in Europe. In 1930s, melamine formaldehyde resin appeared again, which was made of urea. Melamine formaldehyde resin can be used to make arc-resistant materials, which are fire-resistant, waterproof and oil-resistant. Since then, plastics such as polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride, polystyrene and plexiglass have appeared one after another. I have to say that bakelite opened the door.
Since 1976, plastic has become the most widely used material in the world, and it has penetrated into all aspects of people's lives. The electronics industry must use metal as conductor and plastic as edge. In communication, telephone lines are insulated with plastic, and every device for receiving telephone calls in the world is installed in a plastic shell. There are many living facilities and articles made of plastic in the family, such as furniture, sewage pipes, household appliances and so on. Some plastics are also used to make paints. After plastic was applied to the packaging industry, it soon entered a large number of retail malls, greatly improving the packaging of every small commodity. Many sporting goods are also made of plastic. For example, it is used to make surfboards, windsurfers and snorkels.