Elmer Keiser Bolton
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (March 2011) |
Elmer Keiser Bolton (June 23, 1886 – July 30, 1968) was an American chemist and research director for DuPont, notable for his role in developing neoprene and directing the research that led to the discovery of nylon.
Personal life
Bolton was born in Frankford, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the oldest of two brothers. His father ran the furniture store on Main Street, and both he and his brother attended public school in Frankford and went on to college. Bolton went to Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, and took the Classical Course, receiving a B.A. degree in 1908. From there he went to Harvard University, receiving his A.M. degree in 1910 and his Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1913. His thesis advisor was Charles Loring Jackson, and his dissertation concerned the chemistry of periodoquinones.
Several other prominent contemporaries of Bolton's at
In 1913 Bolton won the Sheldon Fellowship, which he used to work at the
Bolton was very impressed by Willstätter's careful, logical approach to tackling a research problem. He felt that this was the result of good training in the German university system. He also observed the relationship between German universities and industry, for which there was no counterpart in the United States. Another aspect of German research that impressed Bolton was the effort to create artificial rubber. This work was significant to German industry, and later to the German war effort in World War II because Germany did not have ready access to sources of natural rubber. Also, the approach being used by the Germans undoubtedly lead to the development of neoprene rubber years later at DuPont Labs.
Bolton married Margarite L. Duncan in 1916 and they had three children, a daughter and two sons. He retired from DuPont after a distinguished career in 1951, but continued to follow the scientific literature. He died July 30, 1968, at the age of eighty-two.
World War I and DuPont
From the 1870s up to the onset of World War I (1914), the organic chemical industry of Germany was a world-leading force in research, development, production, and export; most organic compounds used in America, such as textile dyes and some medicines, were imported from Germany.[1] The disruption of this trade by the war presented an industrial problem at first but simultaneously offered an opportunity for American chemical companies to meet a wartime need and to become better established in this field.[1] When Bolton returned from Germany in 1915 he discovered American organic chemists struggling to develop methods for manufacturing these compounds. The Dupont Company needed chemists, and hired Bolton in 1915.
Bolton joined the Chemical Department at the Experimental Station outside
In 1922 DuPont reorganized its research by dividing the entire research enterprise into four parts, each assigned to one of its four production areas. Bolton was made director of research for the Dyestuffs Department where his ability in this capacity was quickly realized. Dye manufacture requires the synthesis of a large number of intermediate compounds, and Bolton realized these could be used in many activities outside the Dyestuffs Department. By 1923 his lab was working on accelerators for manufacture of
The Stevenson Act and synthetic rubber
In the early 1920s the supply and demand of
Bolton's group's work on synthetic rubber began with the
In 1927 DuPont's Chemical Director
The new material was announced at the Rubber Division of the
Synthetic fibers
When Wallace Carothers arrived at DuPont in 1928 one of the tasks his group took on was the development of new
The approach taken by Carothers' group was to adapt known syntheses that produced short-chain polymers to produce long-chain molecules. The first break was finding that bifunctional esterification could produce long molecule chains which today are known as
Bolton, now the Chemistry department director, refused to give up. Most likely he was aware of the re-discovery of
Carothers surmised that the problem with the polyamides that had been made from ε-
Bolton at this point made a bold and characteristically visionary decision. He decided that practical synthetic fibers could not be made from
This polymer was first made early in 1935, and thanks to concurrent development of polyamine spinning technologies, could be spun into fibers. The fibers had high strength and elasticity, were insensitive to common solvents and melted at 263 °C, well above ironing temperatures.
Bolton insisted that every aspect of the synthesis of this polymer be thoroughly worked out in a pilot plant at the Experimental Station. He insisted that the development begin with pure materials then be adapted to use materials available to a plant in bulk.
On October 27, 1938 DuPont announced it would build a plant at Seaford, Delaware to make nylon, the world's first fully synthetic fiber. The Seaford plant was essentially a scaled-up version of the pilot plant, and had remarkably trouble-free startup.
Publications
- E.K. Bolton, Development of Nylon, Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, (Jan 1942)
- Twenty-one U.S. Patents
Awards and honors
- Honorary D.Sc. degree (1932)
- Board of Trustees (1937-1967)
- Trustee Emeritus (1967-1968)
- University of Delaware, Honorary D.Sc. degree (1942)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology visiting committees (1938-1939)
- Harvard University visiting committees (1940-1941)
- American Chemical Society:
- regional director (1936-1938)
- director-at-large (1940-1943)
- Industrial and Engineering Chemistry and Chemical Engineering News Advisory Board (1948-1949)
- The Chemical Industry Medal (1941)
- The Perkin Medal (1945)
- Elected to the National Academy of Sciences(1946)
- The Willard Gibbs Medal(1954)
References
Bibliography
- Dutton, William S. (1942), Du Pont: One Hundred and Forty Years, Charles Scribner's Sons, LCCN 42011897.
- Robert M. Joyce, Elmer Keiser Bolton Biographical Memoirs V.54 page 50, National Academy of Sciences (1983)
- Patrick J McGrath, Scientists, Business, and the State, 1890-1960, UNC Press (Jan 3, 2002), ISBN 0-8078-2655-3
- DuPont Heritage: Elmer K. Bolton
- DuPont Heritage: Jackson Laboratory
- 1903: Basic Research