THE STORY OF

BAKELITE

BY

JOHN KlMBERLY MUMFORD

Published by

ROBERT L. STILLSON COMPANY

461 Eighth Avenue, New York

UBKASii

TP

COPYRIGHT 1924

ROBERT L. STILLSON COMPANY

NEW YORK
CONTENTS

COVER ILLUSTRATION—FORBST IN THE CARBONIFEROUS AGE

CHAPTER

I. LOOKING BACKWARD

TO THE HORNING OF THE WORLD 7

II. MAN GETS HIS EYES WIDE OPEN

AND DISCOVERS THE EARTH 15

III. THE TREASURES OF EARTH START RUNNING LOW

AND THE CHEMIST DIGS INTO THE WASTE HEAPS 90

IV. THE GAME OF BLIND-MAN'S BUFF

PLAYED BY THE SUBSTANCE NOW CALLED "BAKELITE" .... 23

V. THE PHENOL-FORMALDEHYDE RIDDLE

EARLY SEARCHERS FOR THE ANSWER 28

VI. BAEKELAND HAVING CREATED VELOX PAPER

LOOKS FOR A NEW AND A MORE DIFFICULT JOB 31

VII. BAEKBLAND DISCOVERS SOME OF THE

MANY THINGS THIS NEW RESIN WILL DO 38

VIII. ENLISTING THE MANY MINDS OF INDUSTRY

TO FIND NEW FIELDS FOR BAKELITE TO CONOUER 43

IX. THE MAKING OF BAKELITE is A SILENT PROCESS

LIKE NATURE'S MOLECULAR ACTIVITIES 48

X. THE UNIVERSAL MOLDING MATERIAL 56

XI. THE WONDERFUL METAMORPHOSES OF CLOTH AND PAPER

WHEN IMPREGNATED WITH BAKELITE 62

XII. THE WARTIME STORY OF BAKELITE

RADIO AND THE AIRPLANE . . 70

THE STORY OF BAKELITE

CHAPTER I

LOOKING BACKWARD TO THE

MORNING OF THE WORLD

ALONG with other things, Bakelite lingered till the

day of crying need. It came only after the long and

patient labor of many hands and many minds. It

was hidden in the coal of the mountains and in the

wood of the trees which from the earliest age have

been the symbols of regeneration and immortality.

It is not sufficient to say, as chemists do, that

"Bakelite is a resin formed from equal parts of

formaldehyde and phenol, in the presence of a base,

by the application of heat." It is more than that.

It is a wonder-stuff, the elements of which were pre-

pared in the morning of the world, then laid away

till civilization wanted it badly enough to hunt out

its parts, find a way to put them together and set

them to work.

It was heat that did it—fire, which Man wor-

shipped till he found it was more 'useful in the

kitchen stove and the coke oven and under the

chemical retort, than on the sacred altars. Heat—

and yet more heat—wrought the miracle.

Out of common phenol (carbolic acid), captured

from the waste gases of coal, which is petrified wood,

the chemist has made, with the magic help of heat

THE STORY OF

a substance which can be once melted, but then

"freezes," in the very heat which gave it birth, to a

solidity that mocks at the disintegrating forces of

heat and cold, time and tide, acid and solvent; with

a dielectric strength which fits it to withstand high

voltages and with other properties that solve

the many points vital to problems of electrical

insulation.

Born of wood, Bakelite looks like amber; or like

hard rubber, and is solid as rock. Child of wood and

coal, it resembles neither. Heat makes it, but heat

can never again melt it. Its parents are malodorous,

but Bakelite has no smell. Ammonia is blended with

it at its making, but there remains no scent of it

nor of its other ingredients. Its father and its mother

are caustic and corrosive, but Bakelite has not even a

vestige of taste. Acids will not cut it; alcohol or

solvents will not dissolve it; water, which was its

grandparent, will not penetrate it. It is impervious

to oil, and it has not, like rubber, any mischievous

sulphur, hence no surface bloom and "creeping

currents" to weaken insulation.

Although for countless ages unknown, Bakelite

now is invading almost every field of commerce and

manufacture, of art and of science. Its uses are with-

out number, and it is yet the youngest child in the

chemical family of prodigies. Like Radio, in which

it plays so important a part, no one knows yet all

that it will or will not do. It is at once a contradic-

tion, a mystery, a tireless factotum—a triumph of

creative chemistry.