40: Chain Gang
11/25/22 • 25 min
In this episode, we look at the rise of the Age of Plastics, with polymers from the 1920s and 1930s. We start with urea-formaldehyde resin from 1919, but before the true nature of polymers was clarified. We hear of Hermann Staudinger, who promoted the idea of macromolecules in the 1920s against significant resistance from European chemists. Thé Svedberg's ultracentrifuge gave credence to macromolecules. The rise of DuPont in the 1920s gave us the work of Wallace Carothers and his polymer group, which invented neoprene rubber, polyamide, the first polyester, and ultimately nylon. We learn of the simultaneous work by murderous firm I.G. Farben on synthetic rubbers to free Germany from dependence on latex: Buna, Buna-S, and Buna-N. We learn about hydrogen bonding, a discovery by an undergraduate, Maurice Huggins.
Patreon subscribers have access to a supplemental sheet with molecular structures.
- Support my podcast at https://www.patreon.com/thehistoryofchemistry
- Tell me how your life relates to chemistry! E-mail me at [email protected]
- Get my book, O Mg! How Chemistry Came to Be, from World Scientific Publishing, https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/12670#t=aboutBook
In this episode, we look at the rise of the Age of Plastics, with polymers from the 1920s and 1930s. We start with urea-formaldehyde resin from 1919, but before the true nature of polymers was clarified. We hear of Hermann Staudinger, who promoted the idea of macromolecules in the 1920s against significant resistance from European chemists. Thé Svedberg's ultracentrifuge gave credence to macromolecules. The rise of DuPont in the 1920s gave us the work of Wallace Carothers and his polymer group, which invented neoprene rubber, polyamide, the first polyester, and ultimately nylon. We learn of the simultaneous work by murderous firm I.G. Farben on synthetic rubbers to free Germany from dependence on latex: Buna, Buna-S, and Buna-N. We learn about hydrogen bonding, a discovery by an undergraduate, Maurice Huggins.
Patreon subscribers have access to a supplemental sheet with molecular structures.
- Support my podcast at https://www.patreon.com/thehistoryofchemistry
- Tell me how your life relates to chemistry! E-mail me at [email protected]
- Get my book, O Mg! How Chemistry Came to Be, from World Scientific Publishing, https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/12670#t=aboutBook
Previous Episode
39: This Means War
We examine the first "chemical war," The Great War, or World War I, and its aftermath, and what made it so. Chlorine gas, phosgene gas, mustard gas, and Lewisite were the products of this era. We also discuss the chemical and political career of Chaim Weizmann, the "father of industrial fermentation," and the checkered history of Fritz Haber. Two decades after the Great War, the Nazis invented nerve agents, and used a pesticide to exterminate millions of people.
- Support my podcast at https://www.patreon.com/thehistoryofchemistry
- Tell me how your life relates to chemistry! E-mail me at [email protected]
- Get my book, O Mg! How Chemistry Came to Be, from World Scientific Publishing, https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/12670#t=aboutBook
Next Episode
41: By Land and by Air
Before environmental chemistry, there were definitely observations about Earth's environment and the part chemistry played. We start with Joseph Priestley and Jan Ingenhousz's observations on how plants and animals add to or remove oxygen from the air, and exchange the oxygen with carbon dioxide, in the 1770s. We then look at Théodore de Saussure, Adolphe-Théodore Brongniart, Jacques-Joseph Ébelmen, Jean Baptiste Boussingault, Eduard Suess, and Vladimir Vernadsky's work to understand the carbon cycle. For the nitrogen cycle, we turn to Boussingault, John Bennet Lawes, Joseph Henry Gilbert, Jules Reiset, Theophile Schlœsing, Achille Müntz, Ulysse Gayon, Gabriel Dupetit, Ulysse Gayon, Gabriel Dupetit, and Engelbert Broda's research on the nitrogen cycle. (It takes a whole biosphere to understand a biosphere.) Other observations about chemistry and the environment include Robert Angus Smith and acid rain, plus the ancient-to-modern knowledge of lead poisoning.
- Support my podcast at https://www.patreon.com/thehistoryofchemistry
- Tell me how your life relates to chemistry! E-mail me at [email protected]
- Get my book, O Mg! How Chemistry Came to Be, from World Scientific Publishing, https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/12670#t=aboutBook
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