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Background
Information for Teachers & Parents
Understanding the history and importance of plastics is essential
to communicating basic ideas about plastics to your student. A brief introduction
to the history of plastics is provided below. For a more in-depth discussion
about the history of plastics, please visit our
award-winning section detailing everything from the discovery of plastic,
to the different kinds of plastics that we have today and their many different
uses. Click here to learn more (opens in new window).
History
of Plastics and Polymers
Plastics are polymers. What is a polymer? The simplest definition
of a polymer is something made of many units. Think of a polymer as a
chain. Each link of the chain is the "mer" or basic unit. Mers can be
made of atoms of carbon and hydrogen while other mers may also include
atoms of oxygen or nitrogen. Some mers are made of silicon and oxygen.
To make the chain, many links or "mers" are hooked or polymerized together.
Polymerization can be demonstrated by linking strips of construction paper
together to make paper garlands or hooking together hundreds of paper
clips to form chains.
Polymers have been with us since the beginning of time. Natural
polymers include such things as tar and shellac, tortoise shell and horns,
as well as tree saps that produce amber and latex. These polymers were
processed with heat and pressure into useful articles like hair ornaments
and jewelry. Natural polymers began to be chemically modified during the
1800s to produce many materials. The most famous of these were vulcanized
rubber, gun cotton, and celluloid. The first synthetic polymer produced
was Bakelite in 1909 and was soon followed by the first semi- synthetic
fiber, rayon, which was developed in 1911.
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Did
you know?... |
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The
plastics we all know as Silly Putty were invented by an engineer
in the 1940s -- he originally called it Nutty Putty because of its
ability to stretch to many times its original size |
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Even with these developments, it was not until World War II
that significant changes took place in the polymer industry. Prior to
World War II, natural substances were generally available; therefore,
synthetics that were being developed were not a necessity. Once the world
went to war, our natural sources of latex, wool, silk, and other materials
were cut off, making the use of synthetics critical. During this time
period, we saw the use of nylon, acrylic, neoprene, SBR, polyethylene,
and many more polymers take the place of natural materials that were scarce.
Since then, the polymer industry has continued to grow and has evolved
into one of the fastest growing industries in the U.S. and in the world.
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SAFETY
The Hands On Plastics™
kits contain information about demonstration experiments, which are potentially
dangerous. This information is directed at qualified teachers. Experiments
suggested in this kit should only be performed with appropriate supervision.
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