Researched
Plastics (Bakelite to Nylon)
Bakelite (1907), Staudinger's polymers (1920) and nylon (1935) let chemists build plastics to order; output is now over 400 million tonnes a year.
Open in the interactive tree →Leo Baekeland made the first fully synthetic plastic in 1907. Hermann Staudinger recognized in 1920 that polymers are long chain molecules (Nobel Prize 1953); Carothers's nylon (1935), polyethylene and Ziegler-Natta polypropylene (1950s) followed. Plastics are light, cheap and moldable, but hardly degradable.
Prerequisites
- Wood, Charcoal & Coal~1709Bakelite and early nylon were made from coal-tar chemicals
- Organic Synthesis (Wöhler)1828
- Synthetic Dyes (Mauveine)1856Coal-tar chemistry and the dye firms' labs led to synthetic polymers
- Cracking & Petrochemicals1913Nylon and polyethylene are made from petrochemical feedstocks
Unlocks
- Carbon-Fibre Composites1963
- Modern Wind Turbines~1980Modern rotor blades are glass-fibre reinforced plastic, built on polymer chemistry
- 3D Printing (Additive Mfg)1984Printers solidify photopolymer resins and thermoplastic filaments
- Green Chemistry1998
- Truly Circular Plastic Recyclingopen