Invention Of Polythene

Polythene is now such a common material that it is hard to imagine the importance of its invention in 1933. Since playing a vital role in the wartime development of radar, it has revolutionized consumer life in countless plastic products.

Polythene, more correctly known as polyethylene, was first produced by Eric Fawcett and Reginald Gibson (both Britain), two chemists working for ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries, England). Fawcett and Gibson were attempting to form a polymer of ethylene, which many scientists deemed impossible, by using high temperatures and pressures, and on Friday, 24 March 1933 they set up a reaction, which they left over the weekend. The following Monday Fawcett wrote in his notebook: "Waxy solid found in reaction tube" - the first record of polythene. They were unable to repeat their success and were diverted by ICI into other research, but Fawcett realized that it was a historic discovery and announced it at a conference in 1935; fortunately no-one believed him, because polythene had not yet been patented.

Then Michael Perrin, John Patton and Edmond Williams (all Britain) resumed work on high-pressure polymerization, and on 20 December 1935, after a number of failures, they succeeded in replicating the original experiment. They discovered that the key to success had been the accidental leakage of oxygen into the pressure chamber, which must also have occurred in the 1933 experiment. Once this was established they were able to produce polythene at will in significant quantities, and patented their method in 1937 in the names of all five chemists.

Fawcett's claim to have achieved the supposedly impossible was vindicated, and production of polythene began on a small scale in 1937, with a full-scale plant opening on 1 September 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland and started the Second World War. One of the first uses of polythene was as an electrical insulator in wartime radar, and it was later used to insulate the first round-the-world telephone cable. The first consumer items to be made of polythene were washing-up bowls in 1948, followed by products ranging from bottles, buckets and barrows to supermarket packaging and the humble polythene bag.

Source - The Book Of Inventions by Ian Harrison.