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Development of Bakelite

Location: Yonkers, NY, USA
Date: 1907
Category:
Creator(s): Baekeland, Leo

Around 1907, Belgian-born chemist Leo Hendrik Baekeland took two ordinary chemicals, phenol and formaldehyde, mixed them in a sealed autoclave, and subjected them to heat and pressure.

The sticky, amber-colored resin he produced in his Yonkers laboratory was the first plastic ever to be created entirely from chemicals, and the first material to be made entirely by man.

Tags: Era: 1900-1909
Innovation designated by:
Leo Baekeland and Bakelite
Development of Bakelite
Address:
Yonkers, NY, USA

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