Overview

At the beginning of the twentieth century manufacturers made consumer goods and electrical insulation from natural materials like shellac, rubber, cellulose, and camphor. Leo Hendrik Baekeland's (1863-1944) invention of Bakelite in 1907 ushered in the era of chemically synthesized moldable materials called plastics.

Background

The word plastic comes from the Greek adjective plastikos, which means moldable. The first citation of plastic as a material dates from 1910, when a dictionary defined it as a substance that could be molded into shape when soft.

Alexander Parkes (1813-1890) presented the first artificial molding compound at London's Great International Exhibit of 1862. A mixture of nitrocellulose softened with camphor and castor oil, it could be molded after heating and held its shape when cooled. Parkes believed his invention would one day be a substitute for rubber, but its raw materials were expensive and its manufacturing process inefficient...