Later Dr. Baekeland turned his attention to the phenol condensation products, working gradually up from test tubes to ton vats according to his motto: “Make your mistakes on a small scale and your profits on a large scale.” He found that when equal weights of phenol and formaldehyde were mixed and warmed in the presence of an alkaline catalytic agent the solution separated into two layers, the upper aqueous and the lower a resinous precipitate. This resin was soft, viscous and soluble in alcohol or acetone. But if it was heated under pressure it changed into another and a new kind of resin that was hard, inelastic, unplastic, infusible and insoluble. The chemical name of this product is “polymerized oxybenzyl methylene glycol anhydride,” but nobody calls it that, not even chemists. It is called “Bakelite” after its inventor.
The two stages in its preparation are convenient in many ways. For instance, porous wood may be soaked in the soft resin and then by heat and pressure it is changed to the bakelite form and the wood comes out with a hard finish that may be given the brilliant polish of Japanese lacquer. Paper, cardboard, cloth, wood pulp, sawdust, asbestos and the like may be impregnated with the resin, producing tough and hard material suitable for various purposes. Brass work painted with it and then baked at 300 deg. F. acquires a lacquered surface that is unaffected by soap. Forced in powder or sheet form into molds under a pressure of 1200 to 2000 pounds to the square inch it takes the most delicate impressions. Billiard balls of bakelite are claimed to be better than ivory because, having no grain, they do not swell unequally with heat and humidity and so lose their sphericity. Pipestems and beads of bakelite have the clear brilliancy of amber and greater strength. Fountain pens made of it are transparent so you can see how much ink you have left. A new and enlarging field for bakelite and allied products is the making of noiseless gears for automobiles and other machinery, also of air-plane propellers.