Abstract
Invented in 1907 in Yonkers, New York, phenolformaldehyde was the first thermosetting polymer, that is, a polymer that once it has set can’t be remelted. The polymer was called Bakelite, or more properly Baekelite after its inventor the American chemist Leo Henricus Arthur Baekeland (1863–1944). One of its first uses may have been for the knob on a gear lever in a Rolls Royce automobile. Bakelite provided the long-sought solution to replace ivory for billiard balls and is now also used for bowling balls.
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Notes
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The Bakelizer, National Museum of American History Smithsonian Institution, November 9, 1993, The American Chemical Society.
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Commercially Important Condensation Polymers | Tutorvista.com
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Baker, I. (2018). Bakelite. In: Fifty Materials That Make the World. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78766-4_4
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