A short story about the invention of PVC
Some German companies believed that acetylene gas was a big market, so they invested in manufacturing a large amount of acetylene gas. But just as a large amount of acetylene was being produced, a new type of generator was invented. What followed was a sharp drop in electricity prices, and no one used acetylene gas lamps anymore. In this way, a large amount of acetylene gas is useless. The invention of PVC is very interesting. This starts from Germany more than 100 years ago - electricity was very expensive at that time, and lighting lamps generally used acetylene gas as fuel.
In order to utilize this acetylene gas, in 1912, a German chemist named Fritz Klatte reacted acetylene with hydrochloric acid to obtain vinyl chloride. He put the obtained vinyl chloride on a shelf in the laboratory. After a while, he found that the vinyl chloride had polymerized. This is how PVC was invented.
Unfortunately, he did not know the uses of polyvinyl chloride at that time. Although his company (Greisheim Electron) applied for a patent for polyvinyl chloride in Germany, it was not until 1925 that the patent was It expired, and they didn't figure out what use PVC could be used for. However, just one year later, in 1926, American chemist Waldo Semon independently invented polyvinyl chloride again and discovered that this material had excellent water-proof properties and was very suitable for shower curtains.
As a result, Semon and his company B.F. Goodrich applied for a patent for polyvinyl chloride in the United States, and PVC began to be mass-produced and used.