Baekeland, the son of a shoemaker and a maid, was born in Ghent on 1863. 1884, at the age of 2 1, Baekeland received his doctorate from Ghent university. At the age of 24, he became a professor of physics and chemistry at Bruges Teachers College. 1889 just married the daughter of a university tutor, and Baekeland won a travel scholarship to go to the United States to engage in chemical research.
Encouraged by Professor Columbia University, Baekeland stayed in the United States and worked for a photography supplier. This led him to invent Velox photographic paper a few years later, which can be developed in light, not in the sun. 1893, Baekeland resigned and established Nepera chemical company.
Under the impact of new products, Eastman Kodak, a photographic equipment manufacturer, can't stand it. 1898, after two negotiations, KeDafang bought the patent right of Velox photographic paper for 750,000 US dollars (equivalent to the current150,000 US dollars). However, Kodak soon found that this formula didn't work, and Baekeland's answer was: This is normal. Inventors will omit one or two steps in patent documents to prevent infringement. Kodak was told that they bought the patent, but not all the knowledge. After paying another $654.38 million, Kodak knew that the secret was in a solution.
After digging the first bucket of gold, Baekeland bought a mansion overlooking the Hudson River in yonkers, near New York, transformed a barn into a fully equipped private laboratory, and cooperated with others to build an experimental factory in Brooklyn. At that time, the booming power industry included a huge market for insulating materials. The first temptation Baekeland smelled was the soaring price of shellac, a natural insulating material that has been produced by cottage industries in South Asia for centuries. After investigation, Baekeland took finding a substitute for shellac as its first commercial goal. At that time, chemists began to realize that many natural resins and fibers that can be used as coatings, adhesives and fabrics are polymers, that is, macromolecules with repetitive structures, and began to look for components and methods to synthesize polymers.
As early as 1872, German chemist Adolf von Baer discovered that there were some stubborn residues at the bottom of the glass tube after the reaction between phenol and formaldehyde. However, Bayer's eyes are on synthetic dyes, not insulating materials. For him, this sticky insoluble substance is a dead end. For Baekeland and others, this kind of thing is a bright road sign. Starting from 1904, Baekeland began to study this reaction. Initially, a kind of liquid phenol-formaldehyde shellac was obtained, which was called novolak, but the market was not successful. Three years later, he got a paste-like sticky substance, which became a translucent hard plastic-phenolic plastic after molding.
The difference is that celluloid comes from chemically treated collodion and other plant materials containing cellulose, while phenolic plastic is the first completely synthetic plastic in the world. Baekeland named it "Bakelite" after himself. Fortunately, his British colleague Sir James Swinburne filed a patent application only one day later, otherwise the English name of phenolic plastic might be "Swinburnet". 1909 On February 8th, Baekeland disclosed the plastic at a meeting of the American Chemical Society.
Phenolic plastics are insulating, stable, heat-resistant, corrosion-resistant and nonflammable. Baekeland claims to be a "multi-purpose material". Especially in the rapidly developing automobile, radio and electric power industries, it is made into plugs, sockets, radio and telephone housings, propellers, valves, gears and pipes. At home, it appears on billiards, handles, buttons, knife handles, desktops, pipes, thermos bottles, electric thermos bottles, pens and artificial jewelry. This is alchemy in the 20th century. From cheap products such as coal tar, materials with such a wide range of uses can be obtained. A cover story of Time Magazine 1924 said: People familiar with the potential of phenolic plastics say that it will appear in every kind of mechanical equipment in modern civilization in a few years. On May 20th, 1940, Time magazine called Baekeland "the father of plastics". Of course, phenolic plastics also have disadvantages. It will become dark after heating, with only three colors: brown, black or dark green, which are easy to break.
19 10, Baekeland established the General Phenolic Plastics Company, and started production in its factory in New Jersey. Soon there were competitors, especially Redmanol and Condensite, two solid plastics. Edison tried to control the market by making records with them, but failed. The appearance of counterfeit phenolic plastics also made Baekeland adopt genuine labels similar to today's "Intel Inside" on its products very early. 1926 patent protection expired, and a large number of similar products flooded into the market. After negotiation, Baekeland merged with its rivals and owned a real phenolic empire.
As a scientist, Baekeland is famous for his fame and fortune. He holds more than 65,438+000 patents and many honorary positions. He was also in the Science and Business Hall of Fame after his death. He not only has the business acumen that scientists rarely have, but also has too many dull lives. Besides movies and cars, his biggest hobby is hanging out on yachts in shirts and shorts. But it is said that he only has a formal suit and always wears a pair of old sports shoes. In order to make him change his clothes, the artist's wife picked out a British blue twill serge suit worth 125 in the clothing store and paid the shopkeeper 100 in advance to display the suit in the window and hang a $25 label. That night, Baekeland learned from his wife and son that such a good thing was cheap and good, and bought it the next day. On my way home, I met Samuel Antmeyer, a neighbor and lawyer. Baekeland's new clothes were immediately bought by the other party for 75 dollars, which became an example of his pride in his shrewdness towards his wife.
1939, when Baekeland retired, his son George Washington Baekeland had no intention of going to the sea to do business, and the company sold it to Union Carbide Company for1650,000 US dollars (equivalent to 200 million US dollars today). 1945, one year after Baekeland's death, the annual output of plastics in the United States exceeded 400,000 tons, 1979, surpassing the representative of the industrial age-steel. In this year's exhibition at the London Science Museum, Baekeland's great-grandson Xiu Calaque holds a 1930s urea-formaldehyde plastic mobile phone in one hand and a mobile phone made of biodegradable plastic in the other. In English, plastic is also an emotional adjective. Unfortunately, it often means changeable, unreal and unnatural, implying some hypocrisy or deception. As a ubiquitous part of modern life, the use of plastics has long been ignored. On the contrary, as the product of complex chemical treatment, it is not as real as traditional materials such as wood and metal, and it is difficult to treat, which deteriorates the image.
The root of plastic criticism is that it always turns luxury goods into mass consumer goods. Once any product is owned by everyone, the feeling of cheapness and commonness will follow. /kloc-In the second half of the 0/9th century, cheap suits with celluloid necklines seemed to provide poor people in English slums with the opportunity to dress up as middle class. Someone commented: "But the workmanship of his best suit still looks like a well-dressed craftsman, and no one will recognize him as a middle class." After a long time, celluloid understood that it was curly, yellow and smelly, and it still captured a symbol of class difference. American writer J.B. priestley said in his novel Midnight in the Desert (1937): "In a phenolic house, the plate will not break, but the heart will break." 1957 Richard Hoggatt, a British pop culture scholar, described the changes of working-class families in this way: "Modernism in chain stores is inferior plywood sprayed with colored paint, which is replacing old mahogany furniture, and colorful plastics and chrome-plated biscuit barrels sneak in."
As Peter Domer, a design historian, said, "If you come into contact with plastic plates, imitation wood, printed cotton curtains, industrial printed fabrics and hotel lobby-style pseudo-luxury goods in your daily life, how can you imagine or care about others' so-called good taste-Bauhaus's modernist natural order, German PiDegmer decoration and British King George's classicism?" . If you don't realize this, don't think about it. In any case, being satisfied with what you have now is perfection. "The reputation of plastics related to low-grade and cheap seems to have a long history. Roland barthes said: "The most exposed part of plastic is the sound of an empty flat plate. Its noise is its destruction, and its color is the same. It can only retain the most mediocre chemical appearance. "
Plastic is a synthetic material, because it can be molded by hot melt injection molding and is good at imitating original wood, steel or other expensive materials. 1866, the original intention of Hyatt USA to use celluloid is said to replace ivory billiards that almost destroyed elephants. At that time, one ivory could only make five billiards. Of course, the imitation of plastic is only for practical purposes, and the use value drowns the aesthetic value, so it is impossible to win noble status.
After the 1960s, Philips, Sony, Braun and other big companies often put some "well-designed" models in black plastic square boxes, and the appearance details were compressed to a minimum. Prior to this, TV, audio and other electrical appliances have always followed the style of wooden furniture. This "nameless" rational design has changed the form of many household appliances since then, and its influence has continued until now.