Leo Baekeland
Leo Baekeland | |
---|---|
Novolac, Velox photographic paper | |
Spouse |
Céline Swarts (m. 1889) |
Children | Jenny Nina Rose Baekeland (October 9, 1890 – 1895) George Washington Baekeland (February 8, 1895 – January 31, 1966) Nina Baekenland (July 22, 1896 – May 19, 1975) |
Awards | John Scott Medal (1910) William H. Nichols Medal (1910) Willard Gibbs Award (1913) Perkin Medal (1916)[1] Franklin Medal (1940) |
Signature | |
Leo Hendrik Baekeland
Early life
Leo Baekeland was born in Ghent, Belgium, on November 14, 1863,[5] the son of a cobbler, Charles Baekeland, and a house maid, Rosalia Merchie. His siblings were: Elodia Maria Baekeland; Melonia Leonia Baekeland; Edmundus Baekeland; Rachel Helena Baekeland and Delphina Baekeland.[6]
He told
Personal life
Baekeland married Céline Swarts (1868–1944) on August 8, 1889, and they had two children.[9] One of their grandsons, Brooks (whose father was George Washington Baekeland) married the model Barbara Daly a.k.a. Barbara Daly Baekeland in 1942 and had one child, a boy named Anthony "Tony" Baekeland.
Career
In 1889, Baekeland and his wife Céline took advantage of a travel scholarship to visit universities in England and the United States.[1]: 178 [2]: 14 [10] They visited New York City, where he met Professor Charles F. Chandler of Columbia University and Richard Anthony, of the E. and H.T. Anthony photographic company. Professor Chandler was influential in convincing Baekeland to stay in the United States.[11] Baekeland had already invented a process to develop photographic plates using water instead of other chemicals, which he had patented in Belgium in 1887.[2]: 13 Although this method was unreliable, Anthony saw potential in the young chemist and offered him a job.[8]: 127–130 [12]
Baekeland worked for the Anthony company for two years, and in 1891, set up in business for himself working as a consulting chemist.[8]: 130 However, a spell of illness and disappearing funds made him rethink his actions and he decided to return to his old interest of producing a photographic paper that would allow enlargements to be printed by artificial light.[13] After two years of intensive effort, he perfected the process to produce the paper, which he named "Velox"; it was the first commercially successful photographic paper. At the time, the US was suffering a recession and there were no investors or buyers for his proposed new product, so Baekeland became partners with Leonard Jacobi and established the Nepera Chemical Company in Nepera Park, Yonkers, New York.[8]: 131–135 [12]
In 1899, Jacobi, Baekeland, and Albert Hahn, a further associate, sold Nepera to George Eastman of the Eastman Kodak Co. for $750,000.[14][15] Baekeland earned approximately $215,000 net through the transaction.[8]: 134–136 [16]
With a portion of the money he purchased "Snug Rock", a house in Yonkers, New York, where he set up his own well-equipped laboratory. There, he later said,
"in comfortable financial circumstances, a free man, ready to devote myself again to my favorite studies... I enjoyed for several years that great blessing, the luxury of not being interrupted in one's favorite work."[17]
One of the requirements of the Nepera sale was, in effect, a non-compete clause: Baekeland agreed not to do research in photography for at least 20 years. He would have to find a new area of research. His first step was to go to Germany in 1900, for a "refresher in electrochemistry" at the Technical Institute at Charlottenburg.[2]: 14
Upon returning to the United States, Baekeland was involved briefly but successfully in helping
Baekeland was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1935 and the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1936.[19][20]
Invention of Bakelite
Having been successful with Velox, Baekeland set out to find another promising area for chemical development. As he had done with Velox, he looked for a problem that offered "the best chance for the quickest possible results".[17] Asked why he entered the field of synthetic resins, Baekeland answered that his intention was to make money.[11] By the 1900s, chemists had begun to recognize that many of the natural resins and fibers were polymeric, a term introduced in 1833 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius.[21][22] Adolf von Baeyer had experimented with phenols and formaldehydes in 1872, particularly Pyrogallol and benzaldehyde.[23] He created a "black guck" which he considered useless and irrelevant to his search for synthetic dyes.[8]: 115 [24] Baeyer's student, Werner Kleeberg, experimented with phenol and formaldehyde in 1891, but as Baekeland noted "could not crystallize this mess, nor purify it to constant composition, nor in fact do anything with it once produced".[23]
Baekeland began to investigate the reactions of phenol and formaldehyde.[11] He familiarized himself with previous work and approached the field systematically, carefully controlling and examining the effects of temperature, pressure, and the types and proportions of materials used.[2][8]: 144–145
The first application that appeared promising was the development of a synthetic replacement for shellac (made from the secretion of lac beetles). Baekeland produced a soluble phenol-formaldehyde shellac called "Novolak" but concluded that its properties were inferior. It never became a big market success, but is still used to this day (e. g. as a photoresist).[25]
Baekeland continued to explore possible combinations of phenol and formaldehyde, intrigued by the possibility that such materials could be used in molding. By controlling the pressure and temperature applied to phenol and formaldehyde, he produced his dreamed-of hard moldable plastic: Bakelite.[25] Bakelite was made from phenol, then known as carbolic acid, and formaldehyde. The chemical name of Bakelite is polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride.[4] In compression molding, the resin is generally combined with fillers such as wood or asbestos, before pressing it directly into the final shape of the product. Baekeland's process patent for making insoluble products of phenol and formaldehyde was filed in July 1907, and granted on December 7, 1909. In February 1909, Baekeland officially announced his achievement at a meeting of the New York section of the American Chemical Society.[26]
In 1917, Baekeland became a professor by special appointment at Columbia University.[27]: 87 [28]
The Smithsonian has documents from the county courthouse for Westchester County in White Plains, New York, indicating that he was admitted to U. S. Citizenship on December 16, 1919.[29][30]
In 1922, after patent litigation favorable to Baekeland, the General Bakelite Co., which he had founded in 1910, along with the Condensite Co. founded by Aylesworth, and the Redmanol Chemical Products Company founded by Lawrence V. Redman, were merged into the Bakelite Corporation.[26]
The invention of Bakelite marks the beginning of the
Baekeland received many awards and honors, both during his lifetime and beyond, including the Perkin Medal in 1916 and the Franklin Medal in 1940.[17] In 1974 he was posthumously inducted into the Plastics Hall of Fame and in 1978 he was likewise inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio.[31]
At the time of Baekeland's death in 1944, the world production of Bakelite was ca. 175,000 tons, and it was used in over 15,000 different products. He held more than 100 patents,[17] including processes for the separation of copper and cadmium, and for the impregnation of wood.
Later life and death
As Baekeland grew older he became more eccentric, entering fierce battles with his son and presumptive heir over salary and other issues. He sold the General Bakelite Company to
Children
Jenny Nina Rose Baekeland (October 9, 1890 – 1895)
George Washington Baekeland (February 8, 1895 – January 31, 1966)
Nina Baekeland (July 22, 1896 – May 19, 1975)
References
- ^ . Retrieved September 1, 2015.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Landmarks of the Plastics Industry. England: Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd., Plastics Division. 1962. pp. 13–25.
- ISBN 9780941901123.
- ^ a b c d Amato, Ivan (March 29, 1999). "Time 100: Leo Baekeland". Archived from the original on April 7, 2000. Retrieved November 8, 2007.
- ISBN 9781843347927. Retrieved September 1, 2015.
- ISBN 978-0199562138.
- ^ Funk & Wagnalls, 1936.
- ^ ISBN 9780262522274. Retrieved September 2, 2015.
- ^ The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Vol. XV. James T. White & Company. 1916. pp. 330–331. Retrieved December 25, 2020 – via Google Books.
- ^ "SCI Perkin Medal". Science History Institute. May 31, 2016. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
- ^ a b c "Leo Hendrik Baekeland". Science History Institute. June 2016. Retrieved March 20, 2018.
- ^ ISBN 0-471-17906-X.
- ^ Secker and Warburg. pp. 238–239.
- ISBN 0801815886.
- ^ Haynes[13] quotes a surprising immediate offer of $1,000,000, when Baekeland had been hoping for $50,000 at most.
- S2CID 145724031.
- ^ a b c d e Kettering, Charles Franklin (1946). Biographical memoir of Leo Hendrik Baekeland, 1863–1944. Presented to the academy at the autumn meeting, 1946 (PDF). National Academy of Sciences (U.S.).; Biographical memoirs. p. 206.
- ISBN 1258790807.
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved June 5, 2023.
- ^ "Leo Baekeland". www.nasonline.org. Retrieved June 5, 2023.
- .
- ^ Westman, M.; Laddha, S.; Fifield, L.; Kafentzis, T.; Simmons, K. "Natural fiber composites: a review" (PDF). Pacific North National Laboratory. Retrieved September 1, 2015.
- ^ a b Kaufman, Morris (1963). The first century of plastics; celluloid and its sequel. London: Plastics Institute. pp. 61–69.
- ISBN 978-0385669320. Retrieved September 2, 2015.
- ^ a b "Leo Hendrik Baekeland". Chemical Achievers. Chemical Heritage Foundation. 2005.
- ^ ISBN 0-8369-0149-5.
- ISBN 978-94-009-2407-9.
- ^ "Leo H. Baekeland" (in Dutch). Ghent University. Retrieved January 17, 2019.
- ^ Harding, Robert (1994). "Guide to the Leo h. Baekeland Papers NMAH.AC.0005" (PDF). Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Retrieved September 1, 2015.
- ^ "County of Westchester". Retrieved September 1, 2015.
- ^ Flynn, Tom. "Yonkers, Home of the Plastic Age". Archived from the original on March 2, 2000. Retrieved September 2, 2015.
- ^ Fairchild, David (1948). The World Grows Round My Door. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 258.
- New York Times. February 24, 1944. Retrieved April 14, 2015.
- ^ "Famous interments". Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Retrieved August 12, 2018.
Further reading
- Craig, John A. (April 1916). "Leo Hendrik Baekeland: The Latest Winner Of The Perkin Medal". The World's Work: A History of Our Time. XXXI: 651–655.
- Mercelis, Joris. (2020) Beyond Bakelite: Leo Baekeland and the Business of Science and Invention (MIT Press, 2020) online review
- Farber, Eduard (1970). "Baekeland, Leo Hendrik". ISBN 0-684-10114-9.